SRSR Committee Report

Dissenting Report of His Majesty’s Official Opposition

The Conservative Party of Canada

MP Corey Tochor - Saskatoon—University

MP Gerald Soroka - Yellowhead

MP Ben Lobb - Huron—Bruce

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner, PC, MP - Calgary Nose Hill

Introduction

Canada should be a leader on the international stage in ensuring our Intellectual Property (IP) is protected and our research partnerships are beneficial and secure. The testimony we heard from this study made it clear that this is not the current state of our research partnerships in Canada and that the Government of Canada must do more to bolster national security in the context of the research partnerships that Canadian institutions can pursue. However this Liberal government’s repeated delays on releasing the long needed guidance on these partnerships until after testimony for this report was essentially complete have undermined the committee’s ability to properly investigate and recommend decisions going forward.

This dissenting report provides clarity on several key points that were not addressed or adequately captured by the report and additional recommendations to address the issue of Canadian research partnerships with entities connected to the People's Republic of China (PRC).

• 1. Canada urgently needs a foreign influence registry

Witness after witness made clear that Canada needs to act on a foreign influence registry. Benjamin Fung, a Canada Research Chair and Professor at McGill University who is also with the Alliance Canada Hong Kong stated “Yes, definitely. A foreign registry would help.”^[1] The Alliance Canada Hong Kong also made reference to “a registry of foreign principals and their proxies” in their briefing submission^[2]. Dr. Christian Leuprecht, a Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, noted that there had been a number of significant changes in Australia on this issue, and included reference to a foreign influence registry in Australia in his comments as well^[3]. After continuous calls from the Conservative Opposition, the Liberal government said they would table a bill on a foreign influence registry. But despite closing consultations in the previous spring they continue to delay.[4]

The longer the government waits, the worse off our country will be in terms of research security. We call on the government to act on this important matter with the below recommendation, which was not included in the Committee’s report

Recommendation 1: The federal government immediately establish a foreign influence registry, as called for by the Conservative opposition.

• 2.  Universities do not currently have the capacity to make proper decisions on safe partnerships and the committee has not had the opportunity to adequately scrutinize new  guidelines due to the government’s delays in releasing them.

We heard very clear testimony that universities do not have the capacity to screen for national security threats before they engage in research partnerships. As Mr. Hinton, an IP lawyer stated, “I don't think universities are capable of screening national security issues. They're not resourced. They don't have the wherewithal and they're not experts.”^[5]

This is something the government needs to acknowledge and take action on, to ensure the safety of our research partnerships. Months ago, the Conservative Opposition made clear that Canadian universities should be banned from doing research projects in alliance with foreign dictatorships^[6]. The Conservative Opposition recommended, months ago, that the government issue a ministerial order to advise provinces and Canadian universities to ban research partnerships with the PRC^[7]. As evidenced clearly by the testimony we heard from Dr. Chad Gaffield, the CEO of U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, “The national intelligence services obviously have great capacity that we don't have on our campuses.”^[8] The government must recognize this capacity gap and act.

We heard much testimony that a list of entities which institutions should not conduct research with is in the works^[9]. However, we did not have the opportunity to see such a list and what it would include prior to the closing of witness testimony for this report. We clearly heard from witnesses that the list needs to be evergreen, including from witnesses such as Dr. Chad Gaffield^[10]. Dr. Christian Leuprecht also aptly noted that “The government must muster the courage to list problematic entities, which includes about 200 Chinese institutions and companies, but also entities in Russia and Iran, for instance. Researchers must have clarity about which affiliations are problematic.”^[11] Unfortunately the list which the government ultimately released lacked the courage that Canada needs. Furthermore, although the government finally released a Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern in 2024 we would reiterate that the decision to delay release of the list until 2024 means that it was delayed until after the passing of an additional grant funding cycle, essentially choosing to “kick the can down the road” for another year. The excuses from the government, including Minister Champagne, for why it took them so long to release the list ring hollow given, as established in this report, that there has been a decisive shift in Canada-People’s Republic of China relations since 2017, the government has had many years to recognize and rectify what has been occurring since they took office, and have repeatedly chosen to delay action.

These delays have imposed unacceptable pressures on Canadian academic bodies who have been left without the guidance from government that they required and have put Canadian interests at risk. The Liberal delays in putting forward their guidelines have not only effectively delayed the impact of these guidelines for another year but have also effectively undermined this study, given that the guidelines were only released after the committee received testimony. Clearly the report needs to be revised so that the committee can receive new testimony on the long delayed list, and any adjustments that will be needed to ensure that Canadian research remains safe.

The failure to specifically proscribe organizations such as Huawei represents a terrible blow to the credibility of the latest Liberal policies. Contrary to Liberal claims this is clearly an ongoing issue as can be seen in the recent decision by the Openmind Research Institute in Alberta to partner with Huawei on research in the critical field of artificial intelligence.[12] Given the dangers posed by the risk of advanced artificial intelligence falling into the wrong hands it remains shocking that the Liberals refuse to specifically name Huawei.

As David Vigneault, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has publicly warned, the risks posed by the People’s Republic of China have advanced to such a level that "Everything that they're doing in our universities and in new technology, it's going back into a system very organized to create dual-use applications for the military” and, given that this committee has received expert testimony characterizing this as an “existential threat” the dangers of advanced AI falling into the wrong hands, and the public warnings from the Director of CSIS that "Everything that they're doing in our universities and in new technology,  it's going back into a system very organized to create dual-use applications for the military” and,  given that this committee has further received expert testimony characterizing this as an “existential  threat” to Canada, the failure of this government to adequately protect Canadian research remains unacceptable.

This has been made increasingly clear as for example in how the Liberals and their coalition partners in the NDP have sought to supress investigation into the Winnipeg Lab leaks.[13] Even going so far as to take a Liberal Speaker to court in a shocking violation of parliamentary privilege in an attempt to suppress that information. [14] Ultimately their record shows that they will do anything to hide their repeated failures and their refusal to release the new guidelines until it was too late for this committee to properly scrutinize them is unfortunately a part of this pattern.

Recommendation 2: The government should issue a ministerial order to advise provinces and Canadian universities to ban research partnerships with the PRC and foreign dictatorships, which should include an evergreen list of entities which research should not be conducted with.

Recommendation 3: The Science and Research Committee should receive further witness testimony, including from the responsible minister, in order to ensure that we can properly study the government’s long delayed policy and issue appropriate recommendations in an up to date report.

Conclusion

The Liberal government has failed to adequately prioritize protecting our research, our valuable intellectual property and our research institutions from dangerous relationships with regimes such as the PRC. We cannot allow this to go on any longer. As this dissenting report clearly explains, the government must act. We cannot allow the NDP-Liberal Government to stall on this any longer.