Election interference is top of mind for Canada

Foreign actors persistent in work to ‘sow division,’ U.S. intelligence says

OTTAWA— U.S. authorities say there was no “material impact” from foreign meddling on election systems or political campaigns during the 2018 midterm elections.

But that doesn’t mean someone didn’t try to meddle.

Multiple U.S. agencies submitted a classified report to President Donald Trump Tuesday concluding there is no current evidence that hostile foreign powers compromised the integrity of the November elections.

“Although the specific conclusions within the joint report must remain classified, the departments have concluded there is no evidence to date that any identified activities of a foreign government or foreign agent had a material impact on the integrity or security of election infrastructure or political/ campaign infrastructure,” read a news release from U.S. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielson.

But foreign actors are still trying to “sow division” in American politics through spreading false information and propaganda.

Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies, including Homeland Security, the FBI and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, said last November that foreign actors — particularly Russia — continue to try to influence U.S. political debate.

“They can do this by spreading false information about political processes and candidates, lying about their own interference activities, disseminating propaganda on social media and through other tactics,” the agencies said.

“The American public can mitigate these efforts by remaining informed, reporting suspicious activity and being vigilant consumers of information.”

It’s a similar situation in Canada, as federal political parties, intelligence agencies and elections officials brace for the potential foreign interference in October’s general election.

Canada’s election system — low-tech and paper-based — is relatively resilient. And unlike a presidential system, Canada’s parliamentary system means even a determined and well-resourced nation state would have a very hard time deciding who ends up prime minister.

Our political debate, however, is open to the same kind of influence and misinformation campaigns experienced in the U.S., particularly through the unmediated content flood of social media.

Arecent report from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a non-partisan think tank, suggested that the goal of foreign interference, particularly from the Kremlin, is not about pick- ing winners and losers.

“Oleg Kalugin, a former chief of KGB foreign counterintelligence … says that ‘subversion’ was at the heart of all KGB foreign intelligence operations against the West,” the report, released last month, read.

“Rather than intelligence collection, Kalugin says the primary objective was ‘to weaken the West, to drive wedges in the Western community alliances of all sorts, particularly NATO, (and) to sow discord among allies.’ ” “Canada was not spared.” In a statement to the Star last month, the Russian embassy in Ottawa denied the Kremlin undertook any such misinformation or influence campaigns — a statement contested by repeated public assertions from the U.S. intelligence community and its allies.

Canadian Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould announced last week that a team of five senior bureaucrats — including the countries’ top public servant and the national security adviser to the prime minister — will be responsible for sounding the alarm if Canadian intelligence agencies detect foreign meddling in this October’s election.

The federal government is also putting up $7 million for public awareness and education campaigns aimed at making Canadian voters more resistant to misinformation and propaganda.

Canada’s two intelligence agencies, CSIS and the CSE, as well as the RCMP will also create a joint team to detect foreign interference attempts. The CSE is expected to release an analysis of threats to the federal election later this month.

“The primary objective was ‘to weaken the West, to drive wedges in the Western community alliances of all sorts ...’ ” MACDONALD-LAURIER INSTITUTE REPORT