PROC meeting 19 · 2026-02-03 — Committee Evidence — LegisWatch

Summary

The Procedure and House Affairs Committee met to study foreign interference in the 45th general election, hearing from Nathalie Drouin, David Morrison, Tricia Geddes, Saliou Babou, and Sébastien Aubertin-Giguère, all of whom served on or supported the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol Panel.

Nathalie Drouin, Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Office, stated that Canada's elections were sound and that no foreign interference reached the threshold of threatening the election's integrity, though a baseline of such activity persists. She highlighted new measures including weekly public briefings by the SITE task force, enhanced interdepartmental coordination, and diplomatic outreach, and recommended enshrining new best practices into the protocol and giving the Rapid Response Mechanism a clear year-round mandate with more staff.

David Morrison, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that the panel found no spike in foreign interference during the election and expressed confidence that the results reflected the true will of Canadians. He noted that the rapid response mechanism identified two articles linked to a Chinese state platform regarding Mark Carney—one positive and one negative—and that a démarche was made to the Chinese embassy about online activity targeting candidate Joe Tay, but that no evidence linked the Chinese consulate in Toronto to that campaign.

Tricia Geddes, Deputy Minister of Public Safety, emphasized the need to build resilience in vulnerable diaspora communities through direct engagement and noted that the panel took multiple actions to support Joe Tay, including offering private security and coordinating with the RCMP. She stressed that federal-provincial-territorial cooperation is ongoing and that communications must be expanded in multiple languages to reach all Canadians.

Saliou Babou, Executive Director of the Rapid Response Mechanism, explained that his team identifies and monitors foreign information threats to national security and that the mechanism is housed at Global Affairs to facilitate collaboration with G7 partners. He described the unit as a team of data analysts and scientists that provides ongoing monitoring and shares findings across government.

Sébastien Aubertin-Giguère, National Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator, confirmed that the government has proposed a candidate for the foreign influence transparency commissioner and that the comment period for draft regulations has closed, with about 60 public interventions received. He stated that work is progressing at a high pace to finalize the regulations and build the necessary infrastructure.

During questioning, Michael Cooper pressed the panel on why the public backgrounder on Joe Tay did not fully describe the positive nature of some narratives about Mark Carney, while David Morrison reiterated that the panel called out the activity due to its foreign state nexus, not its content. Blaine Calkins questioned the effectiveness of countermeasures beyond communication, and Morrison responded that diplomatic warnings were issued to the entire diplomatic corps. Christine Normandin asked about the threshold for informing the public versus political parties, and Drouin explained that the threshold is set by cabinet directive and that the panel works by consensus, with no instance of disagreement among members or with parties. Grant Jackson challenged whether the Prime Minister was briefed before defending an MP involved in the Joe Tay situation, and Drouin stated she did not brief the Prime Minister during the election. The committee did not debate any motions or procedural matters.

AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.

Witnesses · 5

Nathalie Drouin

Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Office, National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister and Member of the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol Panel, Privy Council Office

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for inviting me to discuss the work of the panel that administered the critical election incident public protocol during the 45th general election. As you mentioned, Mr. Chair, I, along with my colleagues David Morrison and Tricia Geddes, had the privilege of being panel members during the 45th general election. I would like to begin with a core message, one that multiple independent reviews of multiple elections have shown to be true: Canada's elections were sound. Canadians can and should have full confidence that their elections were secure and that their voices were heard. All democracies are targets of foreign interference, and in that regard, Canada is no different. As we heard during the public inquiry into foreign interference, there is always a baseline of foreign interference observed by our intelligence agencies, which work very hard to mitigate it. It is important to note, however, that we did not see a spike in foreign interference activities during the elections. While we must remain vigilant against continued foreign attempts to undermine our democracy, Canada has implemented robust measures that have protected and will continue…

Full testimony ↗

David Morrison

Deputy Minister and Member of the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol Panel, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development

Opening remarks

Just to clarify on the past question, I think the RRM group, led by Saliou, found two occasions of articles linked to the platform that has been raised. One we judged to be sort of positive. One was much more negative. Those are the only two that we found. We called them out because of the nexus to the foreign state rather than because of what they said. There were two articles only, at slightly different times. I believe one was before the election was called and one was during the election. There was a different tenor to each article and that was it. Thank you.