Recent reports have warned that local candidate nomination meetings could be vulnerable to foreign interference. But experts say there might not be an easy way to tighten the rules that govern those races.
Last month, Global News published a story reporting allegations that the Chinese government interfered in the 2019 Liberal nomination process in the riding of Don Valley North. The story cited sources who claim Beijing bused international students with fake addresses to the nomination meeting to vote for a specific candidate.
The Liberals and MP Han Dong, the candidate in question, have denied those allegations.
During a House committee meeting on Thursday, David Morrison, deputy minister at Foreign Affairs, cautioned MPs about some of the “intelligence” that has been leaked and reported in the media.
Candidate Han Dong celebrates with supporters while taking part in a rally in Toronto on May 22, 2014. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)
He said intelligence gathered by CSIS or other national security agencies “rarely paints a full or concrete or actionable picture. Intelligence almost always comes heavily caveated and qualified.
“It is extremely rare to come across an intel report that is concrete enough to constitute a smoking gun.”
Still, a report released Tuesday outlining the work of a panel of five senior public servants tasked with monitoring election interference during the 2021 federal campaign — a panel that included Morrison — flagged local party nominations as a source of concern.
“There were also concerns raised by some that some foreign states have supported potential candidates for Parliament who will promote the interests of the foreign state. They may receive assistance from agents of the foreign state to sign up party members to help the preferred candidate win a party’s nomination,” the report said.
Reports on election interference are ‘rumours’: deputy minister of Foreign Affairs
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs David Morrison told MPs on the procedure and House affairs committee that intelligence reports ‘rarely paint a full or concrete or actionable picture’ as he disparaged media reports about foreign interference in elections.
Tuesday’s report said that attempts to interfere in the election didn’t affect the integrity of the overall vote and there was no evidence that Elections Canada itself was targeted.
Andrew House, co-leader of the national security group at Fasken Law, said that candidate nomination contests tend to face less scrutiny than general elections.
“It’s not that the rules aren’t strict. It’s that there are so many of these nomination contests occurring, they often happen so quickly [and] they are volunteer-run, by and large,” House said. “Those factors lead to conditions where people either don’t know the rules or the rules can be broken without sufficient scrutiny.”
McMaster University political science professor Peter Graefe pointed out that it’s fairly simple for someone to join a party prior to a nomination election — it can be done just weeks or even days before the nomination meeting.
“Our parties are very open organizations and so you don’t have to go through any kind of complex recruitment process,” Graefe said.
Parties generally require that those looking to join pay a registration fee and sign an attestation stating they don’t belong to any other party. Unlike general elections, party nomination contests do not require that voters be at least 18 and a citizen in order to vote — but voters must prove that they live in the riding.
Graefe said there are ways parties could tighten up the rules to prevent foreign meddling in their nomination meetings. But most solutions come with shortcomings.
One solution would be to require those who wish to vote in a nomination contest to sign up further in advance of the vote — which would allow parties to vet those voting more carefully. But that could deter people from joining up and lower overall participation, Graefe said.
“One of the ways that people join parties and become involved in political life is specifically to support a friend or a neighbour or someone who’s convincing them to support their candidacy,” he said.
Unlike general elections, a person doesn’t need to be a citizen or 18 to vote in a riding’s nomination race. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
Another solution could be to apply federal election rules to candidate elections by verifying that nomination participants are on the federal voters list. But that also would prevent younger Canadians and permanent residents from getting their first taste of politics.
“That kind of participation is an important step towards a broader participation in elections,” Graefe said.
Mehmet Tohti, an advocate for Uyghurs in Canada, said preventing permanent residents from voting in nomination contests would also target communities that are themselves victims of harassment by foreign governments.
“We have to make that distinction. Many diaspora communities, they are not happy with Chinese [government] interference … intimidation and harassment,” he said.
“There is a climate of fear that already exists” in the Chinese-Canadian diaspora community, Cherie Wong, executive director of Alliance Canada Hong Kong, told Power & Politics on Friday. “They have chosen to be silent because they don’t even want to put themselves at the risk of angering the regime.”
House suggested that a more exacting process of identity verification, or the use of technology to scan ballots, could help.
“It seems to me that there are technological solutions to prevent this, and each of the political parties should seek them out,” he said. “Perhaps Elections Canada can provide advice on how to achieve that technological outcome.”
Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault told the House affairs committee last week that Elections Canada’s role in the nomination process is limited to overseeing candidate registration and financing.
“The rules for nominations come under party authority and so if there was a problem, it would be up to CSIS to get involved,” Perrault said in French.
An Elections Canada spokesperson said it would take legislative changes to give the agency a larger oversight role in party nomination votes.
Parties themselves seem reluctant to make any significant changes to how their candidates are selected.
Judi Codd, president of the Liberal electoral district association in the Don Valley North riding, told CBC she finds the allegations in Global’s story “baseless” and Dong’s nomination was by-the-book. She said there’s no evidence that anyone was bused in and that everyone was required to show ID in order to vote.
When asked if the party would make any changes to the way it picks candidates, Liberal Party of Canada director of communications Parker Lund defended the process, saying that voters must prove they live in the riding using verified identification.
“Han Dong was nominated by registered Liberals in an open nomination process that complied with our national nomination rules, and we thank Han for his continued work championing the issues that matter to the people of Don Valley North,” Lund said in a media statement.
Sarah Fischer, the Conservative Party of Canada’s director of communications, told CBC that the party also has no plans to change its rules despite the recent reports.
“The Conservative Party of Canada will not be changing its eligibility criteria for voters in candidate nomination elections,” she said in an email.
The federal NDP didn’t respond to CBC by publication time.
House suggested one approach could be to simply ensure that those running or working on a nomination election are well-versed in the rules.
“It’s the old adage of, ‘If you see something, say something.’ Well, you can’t speak up if you don’t know what you’re looking for,” he said.
But Tohti said the focus should be on tackling disinformation spread by foreign governments, particularly on social media, rather than on tightening rules for nomination elections.
“Foreign powers behind [closed] doors are trying to Influence the decision-making process of … Canadians by using … social media platforms,” he said.
Tohti specifically called for more regulation of WeChat and Tik Tok, social media apps with links to the Chinese government.
Tuesday’s report specifically pointed to an article that circulated on WeChat during the 2021 campaign that falsely claimed a bill introduced by former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu would unfairly target the Chinese community. Chiu lost his seat in that election.
“We have to put some restrictions on [the] Chinese [government’s] propaganda machine,” Tohti said.
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.
Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.
Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.
My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5th.
Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.
My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.
To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.
Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…
The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.
The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.
The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.
Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.
In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.
If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.
Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.
PHOENIX (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on the social media platform X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.
“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again,” he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.
Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he had not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride yet, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”
The former president declined to say whether he would seek a Cabinet role for Kennedy, a job that would require Senate confirmation, but added, “He’s going to have a big role in the administration.”
Asked whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Kennedy and others about that. Trump described Kennedy as “a very talented guy and has strong views.”
The sudden and unexpected weekend social media post evoked the chaotic policymaking that defined Trump’s White House tenure, when he would issue policy declarations on Twitter at virtually all hours. It also underscored the concerns many experts have about Kennedy, who has long promoted debunked theories about vaccine safety, having influence over U.S. public health.
In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.
Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in U.S. kids.
In August, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.
A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.
In his X post Saturday, Kennedy tagged Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiff in that lawsuit, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has a lawsuit pending against news organizations including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on leave from the group but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
What role Kennedy might hold if Trump wins on Tuesday remains unclear. Kennedy recently told NewsNation that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and some agencies under the Department of Agriculture.
But for now, the former independent presidential candidate has become one of Trump’s top surrogates. Trump frequently mentions having the support of Kennedy, a scion of a Democratic dynasty and the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy traveled with Trump Friday and spoke at his rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump said Saturday that he told Kennedy: “You can work on food, you can work on anything you want” except oil policy.
“He wants health, he wants women’s health, he wants men’s health, he wants kids, he wants everything,” Trump added.
