The Liberal government says measures to monitor and assess threats of foreign interference will be part of all future federal by-elections, not just general elections.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Monday that the “Election Security and Intelligence Threat Task Force” will monitor for any signs of interference in the two byelections announced for Sept. 16 — one in LaSalle–Émard–Verdun in Montreal and the other in Winnipeg, Man.
The task force, created in 2019 to protect the federal electoral process, is made up of representatives from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment — Canada’s cyber spy agency.
The Working Group already has some experience in monitoring by-elections, held this year and in 2023.
During the election campaigns for the two September by-elections, the group will provide intelligence assessments to a committee of deputy ministers. In turn, that committee will brief and advise ministers responsible for combating foreign interference and protecting democratic institutions, LeBlanc said in a statement.
Channels of communication “continue to be established” with representatives of the various political parties to ensure that “exchanges can take place, if necessary, during the period of the by-election,” the press release added.
The Task Force will also produce a classified report and an unredacted report on its overall assessment of any attempts at foreign interference in a by-election.
The classified report will be made available to the Prime Minister, relevant Ministers, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and designated party representatives with appropriate security clearance.
Different situation in a partial
The by-election process differs from that of general elections, however, when the federal cabinet assumes a “caretaker” role limited to routine and non-controversial functions.
Under a protocol put in place in 2019 for general elections, a public announcement would be made if a committee of senior officials determined that an incident — or a series of incidents — threatened Canada’s ability to hold a free and fair vote.
These senior officials who are members of the Public Protocol in the event of a major electoral incident receive information from sources such as the Task Force on Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections.
No such announcements were made in the 2019 or 2021 general elections. The Liberals were re-elected with minority mandates, while the Conservatives formed the official opposition.
But in a recent report, a national spy watchdog concluded that the task force and the committee of senior officials “were not designed to adequately address traditional man-made foreign interference.”
The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency report notes that the Task Force focuses on threat activity during the election period, but “foreign interference also occurs between those periods.”
Little time to investigate
“Unlike one-off operations or large-scale campaigns (including large-scale online disinformation), traditional foreign election interference intelligence tends to be granular and specific, focusing more on the activities of individuals in specific constituencies,” the watchdog’s report said.
“Assessing the impact of these activities at the constituency level requires continually receiving and analyzing all relevant intelligence, which is particularly difficult given the short period of time during which an election takes place.”
Similarly, a key feature of traditional foreign interference is that it occurs over the long term and is not limited to election periods, the watchdog notes. While the task force operates continuously, its capacity and operational tempo are reduced outside of “normal” election periods.
The intelligence watchdog agency’s findings follow an interim report by a federal inquiry, which concluded that Chinese foreign interference did not affect the overall results of the 2019 and 2021 general elections.
In her report, Judge Marie-Josée Hogue said that while it was possible that the results in a small number of constituencies were affected by foreign interference, this could not be said with certainty.