MPs upset about being kept in the dark on cyberattacks

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OTTAWA — Liberal and Conservative MPs testified Thursday that the government and the country’s intelligence agencies had failed them by keeping them in the dark about cyberattacks targeting their emails.

The six MPs, all members of the global organization the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, testified in front of their colleagues about having been targeted by the Advanced Persistent Threat 31 (APT31), who are considered to be state-sponsored Chinese hackers.

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In total, 18 MPs and Senators were targeted by the group in 2021, but CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment never informed them. It wasn’t until earlier this year, after the FBI unsealed an indictment on the cyberattack that MPs were told.

“It’s not acceptable that we were in the dark for the last two years,” Liberal MP John McKay said. “A lot of government authorities all seem to know more than we did. That’s unacceptable.”

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis said if the threat to MPs was a physical one like a terrorist bombing, they would be told immediately, not kept in the dark because some of the information was classified.

“We would expect to be immediately evacuated, not that the government keep the information secret simply because the information involved security,” he said.

The attempted hack, which targeted their personal and government emails, was unsuccessful with the Government of Canada’s firewalls blocking the attempt. CSIS and CSE officials have testified that they were aware of the incidents and passed information to House of Commons security assuming the MPs involved would be informed.

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CSIS director David Vigneault acknowledged Wednesday that the spy agency should have been more proactive in alerting MPs.

The House of Commons Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is studying the issue because Speaker Greg Fergus has ruled that the attempted hack constituted a breach of the Parliamentarians’ privilege, essentially their rights as MPs.

Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie said even if the attack wasn’t successful it still undermines their rights because it creates a level of fear and impedes their work.

“This attack appears on the surface to have been minimal impact, but it indicates a far greater concern that someone is watching. They want to know what I’m doing, who I’m meeting and where I will be,” she said.

Liberal MP Judy Sgro said the intelligence agencies’ decision not to share information directly with MPs was a mistake

“The firewall held and because of that, they felt there was no reason to tell us, well I want to know,” she said.

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Sgro said hostile states would like MPs to focus only on constituency issues and stay out of the work of international relations or human rights, but she believes the role of an MP is much bigger.

“I think the intent of a lot of this is to intimidate all of us. So then we will stop speaking up on behalf of people who don’t have a voice,” she said. “I think that’s a big, important part of our job, it is just not to represent our local constituents.”

Conservative MP Tom Kmiec said MPs deserve to know so they can conduct themselves appropriately. He said the recent coverage likely makes some people less likely to email him because they don’t trust him.

“It’s hard to feel respected by CSIS or CSE or the House of Commons cybersecurity administration when they don’t bother to tell us that we are the targets or foreign campaigns,” he said. “If I’m not told. I can’t do anything if I don’t know.”

Kmiec said they should approach digital security just as they do physical security.

The House of Commons and the Government of Canada are targeted by millions of cyberattacks every year. McKay said what is most important now is finding new rules for when MPs will be alerted.

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“I would like to think that we can spend a little bit more time actually dealing with solutions and analysis of the problems instead of just wasting your time blaming whoever should have been blamed,” he said. “That is the hard work that needs to be done here, because this is going to keep on happening, and keep on happening, and keep on happening.”

National Post
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