44th Parl. 1st Sess.

May 6, 2024 11:00AM

Mr. Parm Bains (Steveston—Richmond East, Lib.)

May/6/24 11:48:44 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this very important motion, Motion No. 112. I would like to thank the member for Surrey—Newton for bringing this motion before us and, of course, for his dedicated service. Democracy has always been at risk and has been tested throughout history. Living here, in one of the world's greatest democracies, it is easy to forget how fragile it is. These are real threats posed by foreign governments who seek to intimidate diaspora communities in Canada. We need to combat these threats with new tools and resources to protect our democracy, our institutions and our way of life. Our government has taken some strong measures, like creating a National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians so that MPs could be briefed with gathered intelligence and sensitive information they can work with to make recommendations to government. Additionally, the security and intelligence threats to elections task force was installed to maintain the integrity of our electoral process. In budget 2024, we are committing $655.7 million over the next eight years, and $114.7 million in ongoing funding, to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to enhance its intelligence capabilities, in addition to increased funding for the RCMP. These efforts demonstrate the commitment of the government to push back against the threats of foreign interference. While these are necessary steps, we recognize that they are not sufficient, and we need to modernize our approach and fight to protect ourselves. As Justice Hogue's recent report made clear, more work needs to be done to protect Canada's democracy and institutions from foreign interference. The murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in front of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey is proof of how far some foreign actors will go to achieve their objectives, to harm opposing ideologies or to attempt to destabilize our strong and free nation. Canadian police and intelligence authorities need the necessary tools to track, and they must be equipped with the tools to expose threats from foreign state actors or from individuals from within Canada. I was encouraged to hear, during the recent RCMP press conference, that co-operation between the RCMP and its counterparts in the Five Eyes allied nations, particularly the United States, helped make these arrests possible. This is why Motion No. 112 specifically references the sharing of information and security intelligence to protect democratic institutions, to maintain the rule of law and to prevent violence and terrorism. However, we must do more to protect vulnerable diaspora communities and the integrity of our democracy. Gone are the days when the Conservative government thought it was a good idea to invite Chinese police officers to come here, to strike fear in the Chinese diaspora community and to repatriate people back to China. Motion No. 112 calls on the government to review its measures that hold to account any person or agents of a foreign state undermining democratic institutions, engaging in acts of violence or violating human or international rights in order to bar bad actors from entering Canada. At the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, we completed a study on foreign interference last year. We heard valuable testimony on steps Canada could take to address foreign interference, including a foreign agent registry. The registry has been mentioned a couple of times. The registry is another tool that could have the ability to protect our intellectual property, academic institutions, research and development, industry and innovation, but the registry lacks the strength to target clandestine actors. I reached out to CSIS officers for support and protection advice, and they recognized that a registry has its limits. Dan Stanton, the former executive manager at CSIS, told the committee that it still does not solve the issue of a proxy acting out illicit activities. When asked if a registry would blunt the attempts of the PRC to influence Canada's elections, he said that it would not. Stanton did recommend that the government should focus on the Security of Information Act. That is why I was encouraged to see our government take another strong step forward, this past November, to launch the consultations to amend the Security of Information Act and the CSIS Act to modernize our response to the ever-evolving threats. The findings from the public safety consultations on amendments to the CSIS Act proved to be productive and thoughtful. The report found strong support for proposed amendments to section 16 of the act. Section 16 would close the gap created by technological evolution and regain the ability for CSIS to collect, from within Canada, foreign intelligence about foreign states and foreign individuals in Canada. The amendments proposed in the consultation for the Security of Information Act provided investigators and prosecutors with new categories of offences in response to the reality of modern, clandestine activity, in order to pursue hostile foreign actors from Iran, Russia, China, India or any hostile state. Notably, the Department of Justice received strong support for increasing the penalty for the preparatory acts offence in section 22 and expanding its scope of application to other Security of Information Act offences, as well as to the new foreign interference offences being proposed under the act. Rightly, the report was conscious of the risks these changes could pose to the charter and provided warnings to the government that safeguards are necessary to ensure that these powers are used only against foreign actors. I look forward to seeing revisions to the CSIS Act and the Security of Information Act in the House very soon. Foreign interference ranges from direct hostile action, such as the murder of Mr. Hardeep Singh Nijjar, to the spread of online misinformation and disinformation. The ethics committee is currently studying the effects of misinformation and disinformation on the work of parliamentarians. We heard fascinating testimony last week from Ben Nimmo, a threat investigator at OpenAI, who spoke about the range and success of various foreign interference plots. He spoke about some efforts that had tremendous impact, such as the Russian “hack and leak” operations in 2016 that targeted the United States. However, there are other initiatives, like the Russian operation Secondary Infektion between 2014 and 2019 that posted hundreds of pieces of content across hundreds of platforms, where very little of it was seen by real people, that did not have the intended impact. Again, foreign threats have been real for a long time. Russian state actors may have pioneered mass information activities, but other states are now emerging as leaders in these campaigns. We learned this recently from Justice Hogue's interim report and her findings. Although attempts to interfere in recent elections were not successful, we need to be increasingly vigilant about the intentions of hostile nations and make sure our security intelligence agreements with foreign states work to protect Canadians. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.” We must adapt our thinking and our actions to new realities, which is why I call on all members of the House to support Motion No. 112.

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