:
Good morning, everyone.
I call the meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 65 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
The committee is meeting today to continue its study of foreign election interference.
Throughout this morning's meeting, as we have an evening meeting as well, we would like to extend a special welcome to the Canada and international politics grade 12 class who, with their teacher, Ms. Buchanan, are visiting Ottawa today from Havergal College in Toronto. When they stop by, do say hello.
The clerk and I will maintain a consolidated speaking list of members wishing to speak.
As per the motion that was passed by this committee, we are getting through all of the names of everyone who should have been invited.
I would like to note that Mr. Walied Solomon was invited but was unable to attend. We have extended invitations to Jenni Byrne and Tausha Michaud, and we hope to have them scheduled very shortly.
With us today are Jeremy Broadhurst, senior adviser to the ; and Azam Ishmael, national director, Liberal Party of Canada. For the second panel, we will have with us Mr. Fred DeLorey, former national campaign manager for the Conservative Party; and by video conference, we will have Mr. Hamish Marshall, partner, research, One Persuasion Inc.
Do I see a hand up, Mr. Fergus?
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I don't want to take up too much time either, but I do think that it should be noted that it was a motion this committee passed. The Conservatives spent an enormous amount of time demanding that Katie Telford appear. She did so, and so have all the other witnesses to date.
I would strongly recommend that this individual, if not available today or Thursday, provide dates for when he is available. I would hate to go down the line of questioning that the Conservatives had, where we have to wonder what he is hiding and why he is not making himself available.
Madam Chair, I leave it in your strong leadership hands to handle the scheduling of meetings, but I certainly would want to ensure that everyone invited appear, given the stink that the Conservatives made about making sure that all witnesses be here.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
As I was introduced, I'm the national director of the Liberal Party of Canada and was the national campaign director for the 2021 general campaign.
I'm pleased to be with you today and to accept the invitation to act as a witness for your study of foreign election interference.
[Translation]
The integrity of Canadian democracy is of paramount importance not only for my organization, but also for me personally.
As a political professional who has worked hard for many years to build a reputation for integrity, compliance, diligence and prudence, with a track record of success, I'm pleased to be able to participate in the committee's work today and do everything in my power to shed light on the issues pertaining to your study.
[English]
A fair bit has been said in the press about this matter. In making my remarks today and in answering your questions, I will be subject to two limitations.
First, I would caution that some of your questions may touch on information that has been provided to me in reliance on a security clearance granted to me under Canada's security clearance program. As a result, I'm prohibited from sharing such classified information as a matter of law. While I appreciate and respect the breadth of the committee's privilege to asking questions, I cannot violate my legal obligations of confidentiality or risk national security in answering those questions.
Second, from my review of previous transcripts of your meetings, it appears that some of the matters you are reviewing may relate to content of short meetings or interactions occurring during the midst of an incredibly intense and busy election campaign some years ago. While I will make every effort to be forthright with the committee about my recollections, the candid truth is that I do not recall the details of every discussion I had during these campaigns.
Broadly, let me assure the committee of three things, each to the very best of my knowledge, information and belief.
First, at no time during my tenure as national director has the Liberal Party of Canada knowingly accepted support from, or turned a blind eye to interference in a Canadian election by, any foreign state. We have not tacitly accepted the help of any foreign state, nor have we encouraged it.
Second, the Liberal Party of Canada has extensive compliance measures in place to ensure strict adherence to the Canada Elections Act and other applicable laws by our candidates, nomination contestants and campaign teams. That includes extensive training, detailed audit support and compliance functions, and centralized coordination of many campaign resources. We also have rules governing the conduct of nomination campaigns and party processes in order to build confidence in the public's participation in the political process at every stage.
As with all political parties, we of course cannot credibly speak to the actions of every one of the tens of thousands of volunteers, campaign workers, fundraisers and supporters across the country. However, we are confident in our compliance protocols.
[Translation]
Third, I want to say that I am extremely proud of the work done from coast to coast by the Liberal Party of Canada's election campaign staff and volunteers to help protect our democratic process.
We all have a role to play in preventing foreign interference in our elections. I'm proud to be working for a national party that enjoys support and participation from millions of Canadians representing all facets of society.
[English]
Madam Chair, I wish very much that I could share all of the details of this matter with this committee, because I'm very confident that such a review would clearly show that the decisions taken by me and other Liberal officials were beyond reproach. We can disagree with other parties on policy, but we have all consistently sought to do the right thing as it relates to protecting Canada's democracy against foreign interference.
Unfortunately, some of those details cannot be shared here. In that regard, you'll have to defer to the classified review processes that have been put in place to address the situation, including the review of the special rapporteur.
I appreciate the committee's attention to this matter and, subject to the foregoing cautions, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Jeremy Broadhurst. I currently work in the Prime Minister's Office as a senior adviser to the .
In spring 2019, I took an unpaid leave of absence from my then job as chief of staff to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to act as the national campaign director for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2019 election.
The study this committee is currently engaged on combines two subject matters that my career in politics and government have given me considerable exposure to.
The first of these matters is Canada's intelligence activity, and specifically the efforts to combat foreign interference in our country. While I have had a small role in the government's efforts to combat foreign interference, both in the PMO and from my time at Global Affairs, I have been asked today to appear specifically due to my role in the 2019 election campaign.
Allegations of attempts at interference in our political process by state actors are extremely disturbing and have been taken very seriously by the government, and, I believe, by all the political parties.
It is important to also remember that in 2019 we also saw attempts by interest groups with no obvious affiliation with any state, who worked from outside our country to deliberately pollute our political landscape with lies and ideological propaganda designed to smear the reputation of politicians and confuse and discourage Canadians, who may otherwise have been enthusiastic participants in our political system.
The Liberal Party of Canada has gone to considerable efforts, which we would be happy to discuss, to diminish the impacts of all types of foreign interference. The Liberal Party always stands ready to assist the appropriate authorities in our efforts to combat foreign interference, and the party does try to assist our candidates and volunteers to recognize potential vulnerabilities and when they are being targeted. It is worth noting that what has been lost in recent public dialogue concerning foreign interference is that politicians are most often the victim of this type of interference, but they have not always had the tools necessary to recognize it and prevent it.
The other issue I play a role on in this committee's study is the rights and privileges of parliamentarians. I have worked in the offices of backbenchers and ministers. I have worked in opposition and in government. I have a deep and profound respect for Parliament, its members, and the work they do. I have always been committed to the idea that in order to fulfill the work they are sent to Ottawa by the voters to do, members of Parliament need to have access to some extraordinary powers and privileges.
One instance from the past that I was involved with stands out to me, as I think about your work today. From 2009 to 2011, I served as the director of parliamentary affairs to the leader of the opposition as we engaged in a protracted struggle with the Conservative government of the day over Parliament's right to have access to documents pertaining to the treatment and transfer of Afghan detainees.
The struggle eventually culminated in a historic ruling by then Speaker Peter Milliken, who ruled that parliamentarians did have the right to have access to documents even if they contained sensitive national security information that would have otherwise restricted their distribution. However, throughout that struggle the opposition members from all parties never asserted that this parliamentary privilege was unfettered. They understood that privileges always come with corresponding responsibilities.
At that time, even with the power of the Speaker's ruling in hand, the opposition parties knew that it would be a breach of that responsibility to seek access to the documents in question without appropriate safeguards to protect Canada's national security interests.
To that end, all the opposition parties negotiated with the government, and eventually the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party arrived at an agreement with the government surrounding the controlled access to the documents in question. The parties designated select members who would obtain the appropriate security clearance, and who would then be granted access to those documents in a secured location.
The right of parliamentarians to have access to the material they needed to hold the government to account was respected without compromising national security. It's worth noting that nothing ever leaked. The privilege was exercised with responsibility.
Influenced by this experience, our current pledged in 2015 to establish a permanent committee of parliamentarians who would be cleared to review top secret material. From that commitment came the creation of NSICOP.
By enshrining those safeguards, in effect, codifying the responsibility, the existence of NSICOP ensures that no government, current or future, can deny a request for information or testimony on the grounds that the information can't be delivered in a safe and secure manner.
Currently, it has been announced that NSICOP is reviewing the very same matter this committee is seized with today. The government has committed to providing it with access to all of the material and personnel under its control to assist in that study. The committee will be free to produce a report to Parliament wherein they can draw conclusions from the material they have reviewed to shine the light of transparency on the matter to either reassure Canadians about what has happened or raise further concerns and suggest reasonable paths forward to address those concerns.
I will conclude by saying that I believe it is good that parliamentarians are engaged in that study at NSICOP, and the public can be assured they are doing so responsibly. In that setting, witnesses are not being put in the difficult position of having to choose between the oaths they have sworn to protect Canada's secrets and the privileges of parliamentarians asking the questions, as happens at this committee.
As for me today, I will do my best to answer the questions put to me with full consideration of the public forum that we are in. I will not violate the oaths I have taken to protect our nation's secrets. I will also make an effort not to participate in the perpetuation of unsubstantiated allegations that are damaging the lives and reputations of individuals who are not represented here to defend themselves.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
I'm going to be directing my questions, through you, to Mr. Broadhurst.
Mr. Broadhurst, Global News reported that 48 hours before the candidate nomination cut-off in the 2019 election, senior Liberal Party officials received an urgent briefing by CSIS that the Liberal candidate for Don Valley North was part of a foreign interference network.
Who were the senior Liberal Party officials who were part of this briefing?
:
I will answer part of that. I'll also turn to Mr. Ishmael to give his involvement in it, as I think he might provide some additional information, as well.
Upon receiving the briefing, Mr. Ishmael informed me as national campaign director. I had the requisite security clearance from my previous job, which continued despite the leave of absence I had taken. We had confirmed that before the campaign. That's why we did not use one of the slots provided to the party for that.
Upon hearing that, we decided it would be right to inform the of the content of the briefing that we had received. We needed to ensure that was done safely and securely, a difficult task sometimes during a campaign, as the leader of the party would be on the road.
As it happened, he was going to be in Ottawa the next day, so I briefed him in a safe manner on the 29th.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Through you I'd like to welcome the two witnesses with us today.
Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us.
I have a few questions and I want to start my first question with Mr. Ishmael.
We know that cleared representatives of the Liberal Party of Canada received multiple briefings on foreign interference during both the 2019 and the 2021 elections. We received a report from PCO outlining which parties received briefings on which dates and so on.
I understand you can't reveal the details of those briefings, but I'd like to get a sense from you as to whether they were helpful in the information that was provided. Do you have any recommendations on how we can improve some of those briefings?
We also heard a little bit about some of the tools in the tool kit that is provided to election workers, candidates and so on. Could you elaborate a little bit on some training you would recommend, that this committee could perhaps suggest for candidates during campaigns, and also volunteers?
We did attend a number of briefings over the course of the years. As a general matter, they were helpful to get that information. Particularly as national director of the party, I don't work for Parliament. I am not an employee of the Government of Canada. I am responsible for operating the Liberal Party of Canada, and so being brought into that sphere and made aware of some of the things to be watchful for, things that we could share with candidates coming in.... About that time the conversation was happening, I believe it was CSEC that put out a manual on cybersecurity and how to make candidates cyber-aware, which they published.
We did take the highlights of that information and shared it broadly with our campaigns to ensure that cybersecurity was everybody's responsibility, as much as it was that of the Liberals or Conservatives or NDP. The integrity of our system is primordial to the functioning of the system.
With regard to improvements that could be made to the process, I would say oftentimes they happen just prior to an election. So in a period that's already quite busy, you are forced to carve out additional time. Of course, these are important meetings and this is important information to be shared, but it would be a lot easier if this were an ongoing commitment to political parties so that there was a constant conversation. Oftentimes you are brought into the loop and, frankly, when you're not well versed in the language used by security agencies, sometimes there is a bit of feeling out.... Every job has its own dialogue, its own vernacular that goes with it, so it can be a little bit difficult to discover it, but I was fortunate enough to twice be the person cleared, so I had a bit of a better grip of it in 2021.
:
Just very quickly, I've had the honour of working at a relatively high level on six federal election campaigns. The first three were with the opposition.
We found it very frustrating at those times to not have any kind of conduit to the intelligence security universe during those campaigns. They were moments in them where we had suspicions about things like phone banks working from other countries and we had nowhere really to direct my concerns. We had nowhere to get informed about what our rights and our duties were in those moments.
When we came into government in 2015, the landscape was really bare on this. Parties were left out on an island to deal with it themselves, despite being really at the coalface of the foreign interference struggle. The government felt it was very important to start putting some supports in place for the parties—not just the government party, but the opposition parties—and to give a conduit to share concerns, to get briefed up and to understand the vulnerabilities.
The system will evolve as it should to respond to the needs of the parties. Parties are critical institutions in the way politics work and they need that kind of support. They have lots of valuable information and lots of security information that they need to keep safe on the electronic side of things. They also to protect candidates who are being exposed to some of these attempts for the very first time.
It's good that it's in place and I hope it continues to evolve and get better.
I thank you both for being here to be witnesses for this important study.
I understand that you can't talk about details, so I will do my best to ask more about internal processes so that I better understand how those things work. Both of you have done two different campaigns, so I would love to hear from both of you.
When briefings come forward with any concerns about a particular candidate or campaign, what is the internal process you take to talk to your leader, talk to the candidate and to their campaign manager? I'm just trying to understand: when you have that information, what are the next steps?
:
Can I interrupt? I feel like I need to clarify the question.
I understand what your role is, so I would assume, as a person in charge of a party, if something comes forward to you where there is concern shared about a particular candidate or their campaign, whatever that might be.... I'm wondering what your process would be in connecting during a campaign with the leader of your party and then with the candidate.
I'm not asking you to be judge and jury, but it's, “Oh, this concern has come forward. How are we going to address this?” and what the process is. I'm trying to understand what the internal process is of the party.
I hope that helps.
:
I'm sorry. I feel like I'm having a really hard time asking questions today.
I specifically said in my question if you were given a briefing, so I'm assuming it would come from the appropriate place. What is your internal process?
We are here, talking about what it is to be a person who puts their life out on the line to run for a party, and all of these interference realities are coming out and MPs don't always know. What I'm trying to understand is internally, if you got that information, how you talk to your leader, to your candidates and to that person's campaign manager about next steps. Obviously, you've received a briefing.
Hopefully, that clarifies the question.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'd also like to thank the witnesses who are with us today. What they have to say is very interesting.
Mr. Ishmael, first of all, I'd like to express my gratitude for the important work you do.
I'd like us to talk about what happened during the 2021 election.
[English]
We've heard allegations by the Conservative party that attempts at foreign interference swung ridings in the last election, particularly in the GTA and British Columbia. I'll get to that in a minute.
I think it's important first for members to recall that members of the panel who were responsible for alerting Canadians in the event of an incident that threatened the integrity of our elections confirmed to our committee that, if there had been an incident at the riding level that met the threshold, they would have alerted Canadians. As you know, that didn't happen.
We also heard from NSIRA that there were issues and concerns brought forward by the Conservative Party and that these were responded to thoroughly and that the intelligence did not support the information and the allegations that were made.
Now that I've gotten that on the record, I have my own thoughts on this matter of how all this came about, but I would like to hear your views on the information that had been brought forward to the committee that you were a part of in 2021 and how they were dealt with.
I'll try again and, hopefully, do a better job of asking. I think it was clear, but there you go.
For my next question, we know the reality is that foreign interference in the elections period is changing very rapidly. Based on your testimony today, I hear the complexity of trying to gather information and to see a clear picture when things are not very clear.
I'm curious as to what internally has changed over this period of time in terms of how you talk to your campaigns. Has anything changed about how you do things in your campaigns in acknowledging that foreign interference could have an impact and in trying to find ways to address that pre-emptively?
:
As the conversation has matured, which is maybe the right description of it.... The first time I thought about it, I thought about this uniquely in a cybersecurity setting, because that's what was garnering headlines around the world or the conversation that's going on around the world and how that's being changed.
I think it's how we talk to candidates about simple training, such as two-factor authentication, and also to say, “Hey, watch out for this” or “Be mindful of these types of things.” If somebody raises an issue, then they'll say something like, “Oh, hey, this might have happened to us” or “This is an anomaly.” Then maybe you want to dig one step deeper in the conversation as to what is driving that anomaly. So it's about being more mindful of the anomalies.
It falls more on the side of the staff, who are just dealing with it all of the time, versus the candidate. As you may know, some candidates are nominated into the campaign. During the first week of the campaign, there's a lot coming at them. The more permanent establishment of the party is more aware of the potential threats.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair, for the indulgence.
The has stated repeatedly that he has never received any information about candidates' receiving money from China. I'm asking whether you can confirm that the Prime Minister, in fact, does not have knowledge of any candidate, nomination, contestant, electoral district association or political party having received funding, either directly or indirectly, from Beijing.
Second, following the September 28 and September 29 briefings—with CSIS on the 28th and the on the 29th—can you confirm whether any further information regarding those matters was shared with any external entities, including authorities or law enforcement entities, after those two briefings?
Thank you, Madam Chair.
:
I'll start with the first question. The was truthful in his statement. I have nothing to add to it.
With regard to the second matter, I just want to make sure that I'm understanding it. Are you asking whether we went to authorities different from the ones who spoke to us in the first place?
We did not, as any authority that I could have thought of at that point already has a working relationship with CSIS. There's an MOU in place, for example, with the commissioner of elections, who investigates electoral malfeasance. There's a free flow or exchange of information there. It's not our place to do that since it's not our information. It's CSIS's information. Anything that I could have thought of at that time, or that any of us would have thought of, would have already been covered by the existing relations of the intelligence agency.
I think sometimes it's easy for observers of politics to fall into the fallacy of thinking, particularly with regard to ethnic communities, of there being some sort of monolithic block that have their own set of issues that are foreign to others. That of course is not the case. Canadians have this funny way of making up their own minds about what issues are important to them in any given election campaign.
What we saw repeatedly in 2019 is that a message around community safety, particularly responsible gun control, was resonating there.
There was a feeling in some of those ridings that had previously voted Conservative that the Conservative Party had lost the plot on that. We were able to identify that and get good candidates to win the election.
That's excellent.
I would like, on behalf of PROC committee members, to thank you both for coming to join us.
There is some information that members have requested. If you could send that to the clerk, she will have that circulated around. If you think of something else that you wish you had said or wanted to share, please do not hesitate to send that to the clerk. Once again, the clerk will circulate that around.
With that, I am going to....
Mr. Cooper, is it about this? I need to keep us tight because we have other guests.
For the next panel, we have with us Mr. Fred DeLorey, former national campaign manager for the Conservative Party. Joining us by video conference we have Mr. Hamish Marshall, partner, research One Persuasion Inc.
Welcome to you both, and thank you for being here with us today. You will have up to five minutes for your opening statements, and then we'll proceed to questions from the committee members.
Mr. DeLorey, the floor is yours. Welcome.
:
Madam Chair, good afternoon, and thank you for having me here.
My name is Fred DeLorey. I served as the national campaign manager for the Conservatives in the last general election.
In regard to the matter at hand, I'm going to tell you what I heard and what I know, but given the limited amount of time for my opening statement, my expert opinions will come through my answers to any of your questions later. With that, I'll jump right in.
When it comes to foreign interference during the campaign, we did hear the odd rumbling that something was going on, but it was anecdotal at best. During campaigns, the rumours of misconduct are common and usually end up going nowhere. However, after the campaign was concluded, we noticed some results that felt off. That's when internal rumblings of foreign interference became much louder. Hearing these, I had instructed our field operations teams to investigate the matter by communicating with various local campaigns and reporting back to me.
The report I received came back in memo form. I will read this memo into the record now, and I'd be happy to provide the committee with the electronic version of the memo later, as well as the attachments referenced in the memo.
This is from the memo:
"There's a strong case to be made that there was a degree of influence exerted by an outside actor in the Chinese community during the 44th general election. From speaking with campaign teams and regional organizers, we believe this influence negatively impacted our standing in these seats: Metro Vancouver: Richmond Centre, Steveston—Richmond East, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, Fleetwood—Port Kells; in the Greater Toronto area: Markham—Stouffville, Markham—Unionville, Richmond Hill, Willowdale, Don Valley North, Scarborough—Agincourt, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, Newmarket—Aurora, and to a certain extent Mississauga Centre.
"Through message groups on WeChat, text-based and news-content-style articles were circulated which directly targeted the Conservatives or expressed support for the Liberals. From what we've been hearing, these articles have been popping up on all sorts of groups, especially non-political ones. However, when one of our supporters posted some of the pro-Conservative articles, they were told that their content was too political and was removed from the groups.
"In one example there's an article that starts with 'Crisis for Chinese Canadians, we need to save ourselves', 'Stop the Conservative extremists from getting in power'. Another is, 'The Liberals want your money; the Conservatives want your life', a third is 'The Canadian version of Trump, leader of the Conservative Party wants to block WeChat and vowed to fight China to the end.' Attached you'll find additional examples of other articles that were posted and shared."
As you know, WeChat is the main messaging social media platform used by the Chinese-speaking community in Canada and is directly controlled by Chinese corporations. There were also anti-Conservative ads without authorization tags that were displayed on digital screens in a Chinese grocery store in Scarborough—Agincourt.
The concluding part of this internal memo directed to me reads:
"It's our understanding that the federal Liberals were not expected to do as well as they did with the Chinese community and that they did not coordinate this campaign directly."
Again, I am prepared to forward this memo and the attachments referenced to the committee.
After I received the memo, I forwarded it to our representatives who were sitting on the task force, as we had been instructed to take everything through that.
I was briefed later by our representatives that when they brought the evidence to the task force, they were informed that there were legislative gaps and there was nothing that could be done.
That concludes my opening statement, Madam Chair.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Hamish Marshall. I was the Conservative Party of Canada's national campaign manager in the 2019 federal election.
Obviously, the 2019 election was conducted in the shadow, or the lead-up to it was in the shadow, of allegations of foreign interference in a variety of western democracies. It was something that our party took seriously and pushed the government to take action on. It's something that I took seriously as campaign manager and with our campaign team.
Early in my time as the national campaign manager, I met with a senior academic from one of Canada's leading universities, who made clear what the operating assumption for myself and everyone in our senior campaign team should be: We should assume that all of our electronic communications were compromised by Chinese intelligence and possibly other countries as well. That's something we took seriously. We took the approach that this was something that was being monitored by foreign powers, at the very least.
The government created the protocol and a committee of senior civil servants with the mission to go public if certain thresholds of interference were broken, not if there was any interference; we've seen that there was. There were reports after the 2019 election that there were small instances of interference, but none of them at the threshold.
I was one of the Conservative Party of Canada's representatives who was security-cleared and got the secret clearance on SITE, the security and intelligence threats to elections task force. I went to briefings before and during the election. There were probably half a dozen briefings overall. I was instructed at those briefings not to speak about the specifics of what was discussed and what was shared with us as part of our secret clearance. I will not be able to give specifics from that.
I will say, though, that including political parties was a good idea. When the process first started, it was very clear that the intelligence services, and frankly many of the civil servants there, took a very sort of standoff and confused view of political parties. I think Mr. Broadhurst said earlier that he felt there wasn't a lot of understanding of what we do and our processes, and I would echo that. There was a feeling that political parties were these odd institutions that were sort of on the side of government. There was almost a level of discomfort in dealing with political parties.
I believe political parties are institutions that are fundamental to the nature of democracy in Canada, so incorporating them in the SITE process was good. My regret is that it ended at that point. I think we should be looking at a scenario where political parties are briefed on and included in these matters around election interference between elections, and not just in the immediate lead-up and during elections. I think that would build more trust and be a better way of interfacing between the intelligence services and political parties, which, frankly, will often be the first organizations to see evidence of foreign interference. The ability to have those dialogues I think is extremely valuable.
I will also say, I think to echo something Mr. DeLorey just said, that there seemed to be an extreme, I would say, or a great deal of reticence—I can only speak to 2019—around declaring anything above the threshold for public disclosure. It seemed to me that the people involved, the civil servants involved, were more concerned about being accused of interfering in the election themselves by making something public than the possibility of foreign interference. It's my belief that almost anything that came there would not have met the threshold, whatever the threshold was, for disclosure, because they were so concerned about being seen to interfere.
Perhaps that's rightfully so, but that is something that needs to be fixed going forward. We've now had the 2019 election. There was a report afterwards saying that there was interference, but it wasn't enough to mention during the campaign. Where that line is drawn I think can only help to undermine confidence in Canadian elections. We all have to be very, very, very careful about that.
I'm happy to discuss any of this further.
:
I have one more question, hopefully.
We know that the Conservative Party registered these complaints with the SITE task force, as you mentioned in your opening remarks.
We know that the national security and intelligence adviser testified that the registered Conservative Party of Canada liaison, who I understand was Walied Soloman—who's not here today and, unfortunately, can't confirm or deny this—was sent “a very detailed response back to him on or about October 22, 2021”, and that “he was given a very thorough response at the time.”
Can you confirm that the Conservative Party of Canada received this response that Jody Thomas referred to in her testimony?
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I thank the witnesses for being with us.
My questions are mostly for Mr. DeLorey, but if you want to add something, Mr. Marshall, feel free to do so.
Mr. DeLorey, I'd like to hear your comments on the type of information campaign directors could receive. You mentioned the difficulty of getting information on possible interference that could, for instance, undermine your campaign. Is that correct?
From what I understand, the information provided focused more on your own candidates than on what wasn't related to them, but could undermine them.
Am I summarizing the situation relatively well?
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I thank the people here testifying in this important study.
I'm going to come to you, Mr. DeLorey. I think some of the information you shared today is interesting, and I'm really reflecting on some of the comments you made. This is kind of new, and we need to figure out how we're going to address this issue in a meaningful way.
From my perspective it has to do a couple of things. One thing it has to do is provide some sort of connection between that information, from all the resources they get it from...to the parties. But it also has to be at least transparent enough that the public understands what the process is.
Listening to the testimony today—the previous testimony and this—it seems pretty clear to me that there isn't clarity for anyone about how any of this works, and everybody's trying to figure it out. I appreciate that you talk about addressing some of those legislative gaps.
I would like to go back. Perhaps you could explain for me the work that you do. Of course if there's anything from Mr. Marshall...during the previous election.... What is changing internally in how you address some of these issues or look for those issues? It sounds like what you're telling us is that it feels like you're not getting enough information to do anything. You're giving information, but not receiving much.
What internally have you done as a party or in a campaign role to address some of these issues?
:
The day left the leadership of the party, I resigned as campaign manager as well, so I'm not involved in anything that's moving forward.
What I would of course advise the campaign.... I would be pushing caucus to work on legislation to look at these holes and to figure out what the holes are. We're saying there are gaps. I don't know what they are exactly, so I would be working hard to figure out what those are.
As Mr. Marshall mentioned before, cybersecurity is something that we are obviously very concerned about, and that's an ongoing thing—constantly updating systems and doing that.
Again, this is all very new to us. I think the parties, and obviously the legislators here in this room, should be focused very much on fixing and plugging those holes.
:
I can say that in 2019 we didn't have an explicit conversation about the idea of the committee, if SITE, the task force coming to us with information on one of our candidates. This was all very new at the time, and I don't think we had a specific, different process for it that would be different from normal issues with candidates, as Mr. DeLorey said, that all parties deal with.
It would be an interesting situation, because, based on information that I did see, as I mentioned before, it was very vague and top level. Generally, as a campaign manager—and I can't imagine that my view is any different from any other campaign managers who have spoken here today—we're loathe to fire and remove candidates. It's not something we enjoy doing. It's something difficult, and it's extraordinarily disruptive during an election.
The information that we would have to be presented with by the committee or somebody else, in order to take action would have to be very detailed. The very high-level, vague things and information that was passed on to us weren't about anything. It wasn't a situation that.... I just know our procedures. In order to decide to go to the national candidate selection committee and ask them to rescind someone's nomination, we have to have something very specific and something tangible. I'm not sure if what would have been provided would have met that test.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I thank the witnesses, Mr. Marshall and Mr. DeLorey, for being with us.
From the beginning of our study on foreign interference in Canada's elections, I've been preoccupied by something: the process in place. Witnesses gave us details on it.
According to the process, members of the party have the required security clearance to receive information during the campaign. Since an election campaign runs for a very brief period, there's not a lot of time to react.
I'm wondering what a national campaign director can learn from security clearances. From the beginning of our study, many witnesses told us they could not talk about what they learned during security briefings.
Given your experience as a campaign director, how were those briefings useful to you?
Following up on that, it was even a Conservative candidate in the 2021 election, Mark Johnson, who in the Toronto Star on February 22 was quoted as saying, “The Chinese-Canadian community were deeply offended and antagonized by the highly critical and villainizing positions on China taken by Erin O’Toole and a few other Conservative MPs”. To continue the quote, he said, “The Chinese government didn’t need their agents to drive Chinese-Canadian votes away from the Tory party. Our own MPs were doing a great job of it themselves.”
I want to refer again to the podcast you were on with David Herle, in which you said, “At the same time we're dealing with a pandemic where everyone was blaming China, and there's a lot of anti-Asian racism, and it was certainly never the intent of the campaign or the party or anything, but I think that may have been...they just felt we didn't have their backs in all of this because our message was very hard.” You go on later to say in this, “Pierre Poilievre has been very crafty in his messaging. He never uses the word 'China'. He says, 'Beijing' or 'Beijing communist'. He's been very smart on that.”
Given the perspective of the local Conservative candidate in Scarborough—Agincourt and probably some of your own reflections post election—I was the PS to health during that time, and I certainly remember some of those hard lines about the Chinese-Canadian community feeling very scared after the pandemic and there being an increase in anti-Asian hate, and perhaps the messaging and the campaign being in fact that Chinese-Canadians, as you said, felt that Conservatives didn't have their backs. Do you still feel as though that is an accurate reflection you had?
:
Thank you very much for the question.
[English]
For me, there are two aspects that I think need to be improved. One is, as I mentioned earlier, the co-operation of political parties. I was in those briefings. I was one of the representatives on the task force. I very much felt, certainly at the beginning, that these people were being asked to meet with us and it was almost like we were a burden to them, that we were these weird outsiders who weren't part of government in the way things really worked, and therefore, our views would be solicited in sort of the briefest, most vague form.
Perhaps now that we've been through two elections that has improved. This was very new in 2019, so I hope that has improved. I think that a regular relationship will help with that. If parties, between elections, are given briefings maybe three or four times a year, and there's a back and forth and trust can develop, that will be helpful. As the intelligence services learn more about how we operate campaigns, that would be very helpful.
The other thing that we really need to do is understand what that threshold for public notification is, because it was very vague to me and it was clear to me that nobody else really knew what that was. Is it one riding being influenced? If three ridings were influenced for whatever party, party A or party B, it doesn't matter, but it does impact the outcome of who is the national government, and in a minority Parliament, three seats could obviously make a difference.
They say, “Well, it was only three seats and it didn't meet the criteria of the threshold.” To the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who live in those three seats who are now represented by a party that may have been the result of foreign interference, that's fundamentally problematic. I don't know what that threshold is. We need to have a discussion on it, and it needs to be crystal clear to everybody involved, because my overwhelming sense was unless.... You know, the threshold was so high it would never actually be met. Because the committee was so concerned, to try to have the Clerk of the Privy Council go out and say this election is under threat is such a high bar it would be such a disruptive event in and of itself that they weren't willing to do it.
I'm going to come to Mr. Marshall this time.
It was interesting to me that you talked about the information you received as being very high level, very vague. It didn't really provide any structure for you to be able to make a decision moving forward. I guess I'm just trying to understand. From your perspective, do you think any other party received anything different?
Throughout this study, it seems like there's an assumption that one party received information that other parties didn't, so I'm just trying to figure out if that is something you were concerned about and if you brought forward that concern at any point.
:
I think the nomination process and the process of firing candidates is a perfect example. We've seen the report that CSIS told the to remove the candidate in Don Valley North, and since I've read that report, I've often thought what I would have done in that situation if CSIS had come to us.
Our parties are not set up in a way that we can sort of just take it as read that something came from the security services and, therefore, we should change the candidates. Candidates are nominated by the membership. I know that's true in the NDP as well. The process to remove them.... As campaign manager, I didn't have a magic wand to remove or appoint candidates. Everything has to go through the national candidate selection committee. In another life many years ago, I was our party's chair of our national candidate selection committee. It's a volunteer position, and it's something that our party members take seriously.
Understanding that, it's going to be very, very important for the intelligence services to work co-operatively. I think the solution is to be working with each other on an ongoing basis, not just suddenly two or three months before an election, and their turning up and saying, “Here's a variety of information.”
I think that by working co-operatively, they will have a better education of how we work and we will get a better education of how they work, and that hopefully can be better for the democracy in our whole country.
:
Just to follow up with what Mr. Marshall said, I would take it a step further.
Other countries have political partisans as part of their election commissions appointed by parties who have real input on legislation and what's going on and give real experience on how this all works. If you want intelligence officials to know how campaigns work, then put political people around them who do campaigns. These are the experts. This is an expert profession. We have so many different experts in different fields who we bring in for different things, but in politics, for some reason, we don't.
Again, at Elections Canada, no one who works at Elections Canada has ever run a campaign, so they don't have the same.... Until you're in it, you don't know what it looks like.
I want to thank you for giving us a little bit extra of your time and for agreeing to join us.
If there's anything else that you perhaps want to add or share, please do not hesitate to send it to the clerk. The clerk will have it distributed to members.
With that, I really want to thank you for your time, attention and service. I hope you keep well and safe.
I have to remind members of the committee that we're meeting tonight from 6:30 to 8:30 back in this room. We have two really exciting panels.
On Thursday, we will begin at 10 a.m. with a steering committee meeting from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Then we will have on foreign election interference. For the third hour, we will proceed with the first panel of our colleagues concerning the report of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario.
Also, beginning this Thursday, next Tuesday and next Thursday, so for three days, we will be meeting in room 225 of West Block—upstairs. So it's room 225 in West Block for Thursday, next Tuesday and Thursday, but tonight come back here.
We'll see you at 6:30. Have a good night.
With that, the meeting is adjourned.