Canada’s domestic intelligence agency said it intervened to counter perceived foreign threats to the 2019 federal election, a newly unearthed government document reveals.
In August 2019, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) told then-public safety minister Ralph Goodale that the agency had used its broad “threat-reduction” powers “to reduce the threat posed by foreign interference activities to Canada’s democratic institutions and processes.”
The top-secret document is one of the first indications that threats to the 2019 election rose to the level that Canadian intelligence agencies felt compelled to intervene.
The heavily censored document does not reveal how many threats were identified. It was obtained by Carleton University Prof. Leah West, a former Department of Justice national security lawyer, and shared with the Star.
“To have a confirmation that (threat reduction measures) have been used to counter threats to our democratic institutions, I think, is important just to validate that we are using these tools,” West said in an interview Thursday.
“But, again, we still don’t know the extent to which (the measures) were effective, what type of targets, et cetera. There’s still much to know, especially whether or not this was done on a preventative basis or whether this was in response to something specific and targeted at Canada.”
In the lead up to the 2019 federal election, the federal government established a multiagency task force aimed at monitoring and, if needed, countering any foreign interference in Canada’s democratic institutions.
The move was prompted by concerns that the type of widespread voter influence campaigns seen during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which eventually led to criminal charges against a number of Russian citizens and companies, could taint Canada’s vote. A five-person panel of the country’s most senior civil servants was tasked with reviewing intelligence and notifying the electorate should foreign influence campaigns threaten the integrity of the vote.
In the end, that didn’t happen. The Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s cyberdefence and intelligence agency, observed some foreign cyberactivity during the lead up to the election, but intelligence sources told the Star at the time that the level of activity was not unusual or unexpected.
The CSIS document represents one of the first pieces of evidence that Canada’s intelligence community actively intervened to protect the integrity of the federal election.
“While I cannot speak in detail of the specifics of our assessments and investigations, I can say that threat actors are seeking to influence the Canadian public. This is not new,” wrote CSIS spokesperson John Townsend in a statement to the Star.
“Canadians can be assured that CSIS is following threatrelated activity closely, advising the government of Canada, and will not hesitate to use our full mandate in order to reduce threats to national security if necessary.”
On Thursday, CSIS reported it has observed “steady, and in some cases increasing, foreign interference by state actors against Canada” targeting “all facets of Canadian society.”
“One of the key sectors targeted by this activity is Canada’s democratic institutions and processes,” according to the CSIS report.
“CSIS has observed persistent and sophisticated state-sponsored threat activity targeting elections for many years now and continues to see a rise in its frequency and sophistication. For instance, CSIS observes social media being leveraged to spread disinformation or run foreign-influenced campaigns designed to confuse or divide public opinion, or interfere in healthy public debate.”
But while much of the media attention on interference in democratic elections has focused on hostile state actors since 2016, national security researchers are now raising the alarm about domestic actors using the same techniques to further their own political goals.
“Democracies should focus on putting their own house in order and pay as much attention to homegrown disinformation campaigns … as to foreign influence operations,” wrote Lotus Ruan and Gabrielle Lim, two researchers with the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, in a recent article on JustSecurity.org.
Ruan and Lim argue that while western governments and media outlets focus on the threat of foreign intervention in elections, there should be comparable scrutiny for domestic disinformation and political propaganda.
“Compared to the doubtful effects of Chinese attempts at influencing overseas public opinion or ‘undermining democracy,’ domestic actors who often have a wider range of resources, connections and media coverage to exploit the democratic process have thus far proved to be much more successful at executing effective influence operations, propagandizing the public, and fomenting hateful speech,” they wrote.
Their argument was echoed in a recent CSE report about threats to the next federal election, which is expected to be held as early as September.
“It is often difficult to determine the origin of information circulating online, who is spreading it, and why,” the intelligence agency wrote.
“While beyond the scope of this assessment, false or inaccurate information spread by domestic actors — with or without malign intent — can negatively impact voters and contribute to the goals of foreign threat actors, such as undermining voter trust in electoral processes or increasing polarization among voters.”