House Committee Begins Study of Chinese Cyberattack Against Lawmakers

Conservative MP for Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan Garnett Genuis rises during Question Period, in Ottawa on April 15, 2024. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

A House of Commons committee has begun investigating a 2021 cyberattack by a Chinese hacker group targeting parliamentarians.

MPs unanimously voted last month to initiate the inquiry. On June 4, several Commons officials testified about revelations that Chinese cyber threat actors targeted 18 Canadian MPs and senators. This follows a U.S. indictment in March, which charged seven hackers from the group known as APT31. The group has spent more than a decade targeting political and business figures, as well as critics of the Beijing regime, according to the indictment.

“I should have been informed about this attack. I wasn’t,” Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, one of the targeted parliamentarians, said during the Procedure and House Affairs committee meeting. He reiterated his concerns that the government did not actively inform affected parliamentarians of the threat.

Responding to Mr. Genuis’ inquiry, House of Commons clerk Eric Janse confirmed “there were exchanges between security partners and the House Administration.” He declined to provide further details during the televised committee meeting, however.

Mr. Genuis and Liberal MP John McKay raised concerns in an April 29 statement about not being informed of the threat. They noted that despite warnings from U.S. intelligence authorities about APT31’s attacks in 2022, the Canadian government did not notify the affected parliamentarians.

Both MPs are co-chairs of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), an international group of cross-party legislators working to address the threat posed by Beijing more effectively. IPAC members were key targets of APT31, according to the U.S. indictment.

Mr. Genuis raised a question of privilege April 29 and introduced a motion to refer the investigation of the breach to a House committee for study. He noted that the matter is similar to that of his Conservative colleague Michael Chong, who, according to a May 2023 intelligence leak, was a target of Chinese intelligence and had not been warned by the government.

The Procedure and House Affairs committee was also asked to study a question of privilege relating to Mr. Chong’s case in May 2023. The committee made several recommendations in an April 2024 report on the matter, including developing a protocol to inform the whips about foreign interference threats.

Citing the report, Mr. Janse told MPs that agreements with security partners relevant to these recommendations are already in place. He added that Mr. Genuis’ question of privilege would allow the committee to consider additional measures to protect parliamentarians from cyber threats.

“Cyber attacks have several objectives, one of the most obvious being our technical systems and the search impact on the ability of members to do their work. They can attempt to steal confidential information, impacting members’ ability to work on sensitive files,” he said.

“These attacks might also be seen as attempts to intimidate members, therefore, also interfering with the business of the House,” he added. “When individual members are subjected to various forms of obstruction, the House as a whole can be impeded.”