Assume foreign meddling in next election: minister

Reports point to Russia and China

• Canadians should “assume” that the next federal election will be under increased threat of foreign interference by malevolent actors compared to 2019, warns the minister in charge of democratic institutions.

“In the next general election in Canada, I think we should just assume that the threat environment and the threat context has increased since our last election in the fall of 2019,” Minister Dominic Leblanc said during a virtual event on cybersecurity and election safeguards Wednesday.

“The briefings that we've had, and certainly what Canadian security agencies have made public … indicates that the threat environment is increasing,” he added. “The number of attempts to influence elections in a malicious way, the use of disinformation and the use of cyber threat is increasing globally, so I don't think Canada should naively think we're immune to that.”

During the event, Leblanc was virtually flanked by the CEO of Microsoft, Brad Smith, as well as Karen Donfried of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, who both echoed his thoughts on the increased threat of foreign election interference both in Canada and throughout the world.

Leblanc's comments also come only days after both the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) published reports warning of the growing threat of foreign meddling and espionage, going so far as to say those activities have reached levels “not seen since the Cold War.”

The reports point to Russia and China as the main perpetrators of espionage and foreign interference against Canada, including during elections.

In its latest report, NSICOP found that the last federal election in 2019 did not appear to have been a “significant target of online influence and misinformation,” noting that there was only “some” foreign media activity that did not appear to have any consequential effect.

But that may very well not be the case in the next Canadian election, which could come within the next few months.

According to Leblanc, elections tend to be lightning rods for those who want to sow disinformation and discord within Canada, and that is only amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID-19 has given energy to different state actors and non-state actors who want to disrupt and sow discord and divide societies or agitate racism and hatred. We've seen very ugly examples of that around the world,” he said.

“During an electoral cycle, where many of these views become sharper and where people sort of have a bigger megaphone as an election is rolling, the temptation from these malevolent actors I think will increase,” he continued.

Speaking after Leblanc, Smith added that countries increasingly have to be aware of domestic issues that can make them more vulnerable to foreign interference.

As an example, he pointed to the events of Jan. 6, when a mob of American conspiracy theorists stormed the U.S. Capitol building in what he called “one of the worst days in the history of democracy.”

“One of the lessons of the last couple of years is that we have to worry both about foreign interference, but then the domestic weaknesses that can make that foreign interference more impactful and an even more serious threat,” Smith said. “That's one of the challenges we're grappling with in the United States.”

The three event participants came together to announce a new “compendium on countering election interference” as part of the Paris Call, an international initiative launched by the French government in 2018 to “address new cyberspace threats that could endanger citizens and infrastructure.”

In his remarks, Smith — whose firm is one of the federal government's largest IT and tech services providers — applauded Canada for being at the forefront of the Paris Call initiative since late 2018.

“No government has done more than the Canadian government to advance the protection of democratic elections during the past two-and-a-half years, and it is just an extraordinary set of steps for which all the world's democracies should be grateful,” Smith said.