Foreign actors are trying to interfere with Canadian media, and journalists and their bosses need to be aware, the chair of the Committee of Parliamentarians on National Security and Intelligence warned Wednesday.
All forms of media, including mainstream media, are subject to interference by malicious people, Liberal MP David McGuinty said.
He said he could not release details because the information is classified.
The media was singled out in a recent review by the committee chaired by Mr. McGuinty.
It highlights how China and India interfere with Canadian media content by engaging directly with journalists and media executives.
“Foreign interference is clearly present in the media, and it’s being singled out in the review, not only in our most recent review, but also in the previous one,” Mr. McGuinty told reporters Wednesday.
“You should read it and pass it on to your owners and editors. »
The latest report says there are examples of China paying to publish news articles without attribution, funding media trips to China, pressuring journalists to retract articles, and creating fake accounts on Twitter. social networks to spread disinformation.
According to the report, several Chinese-language media outlets in Canada adopted terminology from a People’s Republic of China (PRC) state media article, without attributing the source.
“Most of these media outlets were linked to the PRC through partnership agreements with the China News Service, the Chinese Communist Party’s main media entity serving China’s ethnocultural communities, which reports directly to the United Front Work Department, the “central coordinating body of the Chinese Communist Party, responsible for foreign interference activities,” the document reads.
The report also states that India has developed a network of contacts through which it carries out interference activities involving journalists, members of ethnocultural communities and parliamentarians. He cites as an example India’s efforts to discredit the leader of a political party “using documents prepared by Indian intelligence services.”
The Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Intelligence also observed states manipulating traditional media to disseminate propaganda in what appeared to be independent news publications, without specifying which countries were involved.
The redacted report is based on secret intelligence, which often does not give a complete picture of the situation and does not amount to evidence.
These states are targeting Canada to exploit its open society and penetrate institutions to achieve their goals, the committee’s 2019 report points out.
This includes media manipulation, which poses a significant risk to the rights and freedoms of Canadians and to the sovereignty of the country, according to this same report.