(Ottawa) A senior civil servant who was part of an expert panel monitoring threats to the 2019 federal election said some members were concerned that alerting the public would be seen as interfering in the democratic process.
Nathalie Drouin, who was then deputy minister of Justice, testifies Monday at the public inquiry into foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
The 2019 panel ultimately issued no warnings about possible threats of interference, although it did discuss a disinformation campaign that targeted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But according to the members of the Public Protocol in the event of a major electoral incident, this campaign did not reach the threshold which would have made it possible to alert the population.
Mme Drouin, now Prime Minister Trudeau’s national security and intelligence advisor, says there were strong reasons to keep the threshold high, otherwise there was a risk of causing more harm than good by sowing confusion. among Canadians.
She affirms that the group of experts also wanted to ensure that it was not perceived “as taking a position” or “interfering in a democratic exercise”, in the middle of the 2019 electoral campaign.