Canada's leading research university warns Proposed Foreign Influence Transparency Register There could be an unintended “chilling effect” on international partnerships, meaning Canada misses out on cutting-edge opportunities.
Canada Under 15 is one of several concerned universities urging MPs to make changes to the planned registration system, which is at the heart of legislation being rapidly considered by a House of Commons committee.
Committee members are due to begin reviewing the sweeping foreign interference bill, including all amendments, on Monday after just one week of hearings.
The bill would introduce new criminal provisions for deceptive or covert conduct, allow the sharing of sensitive information with businesses and other agencies outside government, and establish a foreign influence transparency registry.
The bill recognizes that states and other foreign entities may interfere to achieve political goals and may hire people to act on their behalf without disclosing those relationships.
The Transparency Registry would require certain individuals to register with the federal government to help protect against this type of activity.
Failure to register arrangements or activities with a foreign principal (power, state, entity or economic entity) may result in financial penalties or even criminal sanctions.
In a written brief to the committee, U15 Canada expressed concerns about the Registry’s reporting requirements given the extensive network of international research collaborations.
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“It is simply not possible for a large research university to track individual research collaborations within its institution and report them in the registry within the required 14 days,” the submission said.
U15 Canada also called for greater clarity on how an arrangement would be defined and whether it would cover research partnerships, funding agreements or other international research activities with public universities, research institutes or foreign research funding agencies.
“The registry’s reporting requirements could have a chilling effect on international research partnerships, which could seriously damage relationships with international peers and mean Canada misses out on opportunities to collaborate with peer countries on cutting-edge research and access world-leading expertise.”
The panel also wondered whether publishing or disseminating research findings through peer-reviewed academic journals, teaching, conferences or other public forums would be considered dissemination activities under the law.
U15 Canada said such a request could “severely infringe” academic freedom and “limit the pursuit of open science and the free exchange of ideas.”
Universities Canada, which represents the country's 96 universities, said in its submission to the committee that the transparency registry could capture information about political or governmental processes “that is communicated or disseminated by any means, including social media.”
“This can include research publications that seek to engage with issues such as foreign policy, governance processes, economics, climate and technology that are subject to increasing political debate,” Universities Canada said.
The group noted that research publications already have transparency requirements, such as disclosing university affiliations and financial conflicts of interest.
“Further registration requirements could create duplicative administrative processes that could stifle Canadian research and may not take into account other research safety policies that universities have implemented in recent years.”
The Centre for International Governance Innovation said in a policy brief submitted to the committee that the Canadian influence registry would be “state-neutral,” meaning it would not target known state adversaries such as China.
Wesley Wark, a security expert and senior fellow at CIGI, said in the briefing that Canada chose to take this approach despite problems with Australia's approach and a newer model proposed by the United Kingdom.
Walker noted that the UK version is a two-tier system. The enhanced tier gives the secretary of state the power to require specific countries, parts of countries or foreign government-controlled entities to register a wider range of activities when necessary.
In a briefing to a House of Commons committee, Benjamin Fung, a professor and Canada Research Chair at McGill University, expressed support for the two-tier model used in the U.K. Fung said the approach would allow the Canadian government to “implement more precise restrictions on selected entities.”
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said the section of the bill creating an influence register “contains vague and broad language that raises questions of democratic accountability.”
The association is concerned that the register could be used by governments as a tool to monitor the international engagement of a wide range of actors, including state-owned or -funded foreign broadcasters, academic institutions and charities.
“These considerations may involve issues of press freedom and privacy, as well as the question of the place international organizations retain in the Canadian ecosystem,” the association noted in its brief.
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