(Ottawa) Canada’s intelligence agency knew China was “covertly and deceptively interfering” in the last two federal votes, according to a briefing document released Monday during the public inquiry into foreign interference.
The six-page, heavily redacted document is dated February 2023 and bears the title “Briefing to the Prime Minister’s Office on Threats of Foreign Interference to Canada’s Democratic Institutions.”
He was groomed for his office by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service following anonymous media leaks in the fall of 2022 regarding allegations of foreign interference, the inquiry heard.
The document says CSIS provided 34 briefings on foreign interference – including during the last two federal elections – to numerous ministers from June 2018 to December 2022. It says Mr Trudeau was briefed in February 2021 and October 2022.
The paper concludes that state actors are able to intervene successfully in Canada because there are “few legal or political consequences.” This means that foreign interference is “low risk and high reward.”
The government must change its perspective and be prepared to take “decisive action” and impose consequences to better protect the country’s democratic institutions, he said. A registry of foreign agents, as promised by the Liberal government, would be useful, but only as part of a broader toolbox.
” As long as [l’ingérence étrangère] will not be considered an existential threat to Canadian democracy and governments will not respond forcefully and actively, these threats will persist. »
Earlier Monday, senior government officials who monitored threats during the 2021 and 2019 elections said the information they received about foreign interference activities did not meet the high threshold set to warn Canadians, whether at the constituency level or at the national level.
“We have witnessed some foreign interference activities, but we have not seen anything that impacts the rights of Canadians to free and fair elections,” said Nathalie Drouin, a member of both oversight committees and now now advisor to the Prime Minister on national security and intelligence.
CSIS took the media leaks “extremely seriously” because they posed a “direct threat” to the integrity of operations, the document notes.
In 2021, China’s foreign interference activities were “almost certainly motivated by a perception” of the Conservative Party of Canada’s electoral platform, which was seen as anti-China, it says.
He then acknowledges “activities observed online and in the media” aimed at dissuading Canadians, “particularly those of Chinese origin,” from supporting former leader Erin O’Toole and his party.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of his staff are expected to testify later this week and look forward to answering the commission’s questions, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office announced Monday.
To warn or not to warn, that is the question
Panel members were pressed to explain why they chose not to warn the public during these campaigns, despite evidence of a disinformation campaign directed against former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu and the party as a whole during the 2021 vote.
Panel member Marta Morgan said the group tried during the campaign to determine whether information was flowing organically or through a state-sponsored actor. While Chinese media picked up stories against Chiu, they calmed down before the vote, the investigation found.
François Daigle, who served on the 2021 committee as deputy justice minister, argued that for the committee to intervene, there would need to be “reliable information” about something nefarious happening, such as a proxy acting in the name of a state to spread lies during an election.
That’s because freedom of expression is a Charter-protected right and elections are a time of vigorous debate designed to influence voters.
“It is not enough to say that there is a simple possibility that an agent will act,” said Mr. Daigle.
The February 2023 CSIS briefing document indicates that it has been difficult to assess the impact of foreign interference activities on the last two elections.
He noted that the panel of government officials responsible for the 2019 and 2021 votes assessed that these activities did not impact the election as a whole and were not considered serious enough to warrant a public notification.
“We know that (the People’s Republic of China) interfered clandestinely and deceptively in the 2019 and 2021 general elections,” the CSIS document reads.
“In both cases, these activities were pragmatic in nature and focused primarily on supporting those considered ‘pro-PRC’ (pro-People’s Republic of China) or ‘neutral on issues of concern to the PRC government’.” .
The document said “at least 11 candidates and 13 staff members were involved” in China’s foreign interference networks, including members of several political parties.
In cross-examination, Mme Drouin argued that the committee was not saying that it had “noted any foreign interference,” but that it had concluded that the interference was not significant enough to take action.
“The information we saw, the incidents we saw did not change the outcome of the election,” she added.
She also objected to a suggestion by Mr. O’Toole’s lawyer that the panel had a “very strong bias toward inaction” because intelligence “very rarely, in the first instance, allows any degree of certainty”.
“There is a reason why the threshold is very high,” replied M.me Drouin. If the panel makes an announcement based on something that is unfounded, that is not true, we can create more harm than trying to correct something. »
It is not because the committee did not take the step of alerting the public that other organizations such as CSIS, the RCMP or Elections Canada did not act, she added.
Need information
Mme Drouin and his officials spent Monday arguing for the need for a high threshold for informing the public of attempts at foreign interference. Not only does this risk sowing confusion among Canadians, she detailed, but it could also be perceived as “interference in a democratic exercise”.
David Morrison, who was Justin Trudeau’s acting national security and intelligence adviser in 2021, testified about an email he sent to another government official following a meeting with Conservative party officials, who expressed dissatisfaction with the panel’s handling of concerns raised during the election.
He wrote that his approach may need to be revised because much of what might emerge in an election falls into a “gray area.”
In his testimony Monday, he said the email demonstrates the difficulties in determining what constitutes foreign interference versus “legitimate discussions.”
Nathalie Drouin explained for the investigation how the 2019 panel had been alerted to a false article published by the “Buffalo Chronicle” about Justin Trudeau, specifying that Facebook had removed the publication “proactively”, as part of of his commitment to defending the integrity of this election.
She also testified that they knew students were being bused to a contest for the controversial 2019 Liberal Party nomination in Toronto, but the details surrounding that report were uncorroborated and they did not know the name of the candidate.
In the end, Mme Drouin said he made the connection when media reports subsequently emerged about irregularities surrounding the nomination race of Han Dong, the former Liberal MP who testified last week to encourage students Chinese internationals to join the Liberal Party.
The panel deliberated on the extent to which they could review a nomination campaign, given that political parties set most of the rules except for financing, which is regulated by the federal government.
Nomination races generally take place outside of election periods, Mr.me Drouin.
She recalled that the committee had contacted CSIS and other agencies to ask them to provide any new information on the nomination race.
The Commissioner of Canada Elections and the Liberals were also briefed on the information, she added – in part because the commissioner’s mandate includes investigating “potential funding irregularities.”