Speaker 1: Gannetta's long awaited body to tackle foreign interference has come
Speaker 1: into effect. Anton Bogemann has been named the country's first
Speaker 1: ever Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner. He will be responsible for
Speaker 1: managing and maintaining the public registry, enforcing compliance and issuing penalties,
Speaker 1: and providing public guidance, and referring criminal threats to security
Speaker 1: agencies like CEESIS or the RCMP. Commissioner bogeman joins me, Now,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for your time today. The office
Speaker 1: is now up and running. Have you had any outreach
Speaker 1: with anyone registering yet?
Speaker 2: Yeah. We actually had one registration come into the office
Speaker 2: on our first day, on the fourth, and that's currently
Speaker 2: with the team to review that registration make sure it
Speaker 2: complies with the regulations. So I know at least one
Speaker 2: has come in. But there is a time leg built
Speaker 2: into the legislation, so any existing arrangements must be registered
Speaker 2: within sixty days of the coming into into force, so
Speaker 2: that's by October third, and then any new arrangements that
Speaker 2: start after the coming into a force, there's fourteen days
Speaker 2: within which those need to be registered.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us anything about the first.
Speaker 2: One other than it is from I believe a civil
Speaker 2: society organization that is working with a foreign principle, but
Speaker 2: I don't have the details on that.
Speaker 1: Okay. One thing that you had mentioned in some of
Speaker 1: your interviews leading up to this moment is that you
Speaker 1: had not been brief yet by Canada's national security agencies.
Speaker 1: Have you had any briefings yet and have you learned
Speaker 1: anything about sort of the state of what you'll be
Speaker 1: dealing with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so those are still in the progress of getting
Speaker 2: set up. You need to go to a secure location
Speaker 2: and getting one of those away from Ottawa. It's proving
Speaker 2: just a little bit challenging, but that will happen in
Speaker 2: the very near future.
Speaker 1: Okay. Now, there may be some confusion among Canadians about
Speaker 1: what exactly your office does and what your office does
Speaker 1: not do. From your perspective, what do you see as
Speaker 1: the priority for you in this role. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the mandate of the office, and with the new
Speaker 2: legislation that comes in it establishes the new office. It
Speaker 2: established is myself as commissioner and really a public registry
Speaker 2: of foreign influence activity. So my role is to administer
Speaker 2: the new statute, to maintain the registry, to make sure
Speaker 2: that the information in the registry is made publicly available
Speaker 2: to Canadians as well as to monitor compliance and enforced
Speaker 2: compliance when necessary.
Speaker 1: Now, you told our colleagues here at CBC that your
Speaker 1: office will not be solving foreign interference. Of course, it
Speaker 1: is something that Canadians has been front and center for
Speaker 1: Canadians with the concerns that have been reported on over
Speaker 1: the past couple of years. Can you sort of explain
Speaker 1: why that's not what your office is going to be
Speaker 1: focusing on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so maybe just to reinforce that my office and
Speaker 2: the new transparency legislation, the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act,
Speaker 2: it's really about ensuring transparency for these influence activities carried
Speaker 2: out on behalf of foreign principles that are targeting our
Speaker 2: political and government processes. So it's an important new tool.
Speaker 2: It's a tool that wasn't there previously and is definitely
Speaker 2: part of the solution, but part of the solution alongside
Speaker 2: the other work that the other agencies are doing, the
Speaker 2: other National security agencies Department, you know, the Ministry of
Speaker 2: Public Safety, r cmp cis CSE, the Rapid Response Mechanism,
Speaker 2: and those that we're working within their own mandates to
Speaker 2: address those aspects of foreign interference that are not part
Speaker 2: of mind. So, you know, talking about the illegal activities,
Speaker 2: the you know, coursive activities, things like transnational repression, cyber attacks,
Speaker 2: those sorts of things, they're outside of our mandate. Our
Speaker 2: mandate is just on making transparent the foreign influence activities
Speaker 2: that are targeting our political and governmental processes.
Speaker 1: Do you think it would be helpful at any point
Speaker 1: if perhaps your mandate were expanded to include some of
Speaker 1: those things that you just mentioned. They are some of
Speaker 1: those things that are deep concerns for Canadians.
Speaker 2: As this is just launching, you know, I hesitate to
Speaker 2: make any comments on that at this point in time,
Speaker 2: but certainly what I do see as part of my
Speaker 2: role and what I've done in previous roles when I
Speaker 2: was Chief Electoral Officer in British Columbia is I do
Speaker 2: watch very closely how the legislation is implemented, what the
Speaker 2: impact are, and understanding how that is being put in place,
Speaker 2: so that I can make recommendations to parliamentarians if I
Speaker 2: think that any changes need to be made around the Act,
Speaker 2: around the regulations and around the mandate.
Speaker 1: How are you going to assess when something sort of
Speaker 1: crosses a line and is worth the attention of national
Speaker 1: policing agencies or intelligence agencies in Canada. What tools do
Speaker 1: you have to sort of assess whether it's something for
Speaker 1: you to be dealing with or something for law enforcement
Speaker 1: to be dealing with.
Speaker 2: Yees. So we're part of the national intelligence community, we're
Speaker 2: part of the national security community. We have MLUS currently,
Speaker 2: you know, with the RCMP and ceases to enable exchange
Speaker 2: of information joint activities where necessary, as well have an
Speaker 2: internal capacity within the organization, you know, to be monitoring
Speaker 2: what is taking place in the environment. So part of
Speaker 2: that is understanding what mandates are in place, understanding the
Speaker 2: leavers that the other agencies have, and knowing how those
Speaker 2: fit into our mandates. So we'll be able to if
Speaker 2: we come across something that obviously is outside of our
Speaker 2: mandate that does fall under the legislation of the other agencies,
Speaker 2: we'll be able to pass that on to them.
Speaker 1: Your office has the ability to impose fines on anyone
Speaker 1: found to be sort of violating this violating the law here.
Speaker 1: Do you think that there needs to be more teeth here?
Speaker 1: From your purview, it should go beyond fines. I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure what it would but is there something that
Speaker 1: you think that perhaps to send a message to ensure compliance,
Speaker 1: Is there something further that could be done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean certainly, enforcing compliance with the new laws
Speaker 2: and the new requirements is an important aspect of maintaining
Speaker 2: deterrence against you know, kind of covert foreign influence activities.
Speaker 2: Right now, of course, the clients mechanism and the enforcement
Speaker 2: mechanisms haven't been tested. There's a wide range of administrative
Speaker 2: penalties that we will be administering, from two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty dollars to one million dollars in terms of a fine,
Speaker 2: and of course then becomes that any violation will be public,
Speaker 2: so there will be a naming and shaming component to that.
Speaker 2: But the act also establishes offenses on the criminal side
Speaker 2: for perhaps more serious offenses, perhaps if someone was deliberately
Speaker 2: obstructing the work of the Commission, and in that case
Speaker 2: the RCMP can enforce those and that includes jail time
Speaker 2: up to five years and finds it up to five
Speaker 2: million dollars. So there is a teeth in the legislation.
Speaker 2: As I mentioned before, I'll be watching how this works,
Speaker 2: and I do have the ability to know to write
Speaker 2: reports to parliamentarians with any recommendations for change.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you report to Parliament, as you just mentioned there,
Speaker 1: one year from now. If you were to sit here
Speaker 1: and have a conversation about how the first year is gone,
Speaker 1: what are the benchmarks, What does success look like like
Speaker 1: to you one year from now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think success one is going to be
Speaker 2: that the office and these requirements are well understood by Canadians,
Speaker 2: by businesses that may be, you know, working with foreign principles,
Speaker 2: by civil society groups, by academia, by the media, by parliamentarians, legislators,
Speaker 2: public officeholders at all levels. I think that's going to
Speaker 2: be really important. I think also that you know that
Speaker 2: that there are registries in the register that that individuals
Speaker 2: and organizations who are carrying out this activity are making
Speaker 2: these activities transparent when they're impacting political and government processes
Speaker 2: in Canada. You know, transparency, it's one of the most
Speaker 2: effective tools I think that we have to help build
Speaker 2: resilience against foreign interference to help maintain trust in democratic institutions.
Speaker 2: And with this new registry, adding an additional new tool
Speaker 2: to the mix. Seeing it working, seeing it working in place,
Speaker 2: I think is going to be an important accountability measure.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you very much for your time today.
Speaker 1: Commissioner Anton Bogman is Canada's foreign influenced transparency commissioner.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much,