The 2019 election might be long over, but Canada is “increasingly” a target for foreign interference, warns a briefing note prepared for President of the Privy Council Dominic Leblanc.
The heavily redacted package of briefing notes, drafted for the New Brunswick MP around the time of his swearing-in last November, also points to potential “gaps” in the way Canada responded to the fall election.
As part of his new job at the cabinet table, Leblanc is responsible for supporting Canada’s democratic institutions — a role that had its own ministry last session.
While the briefing document is filled with bureaucratic jargon, the warning jumps off the page.
“Foreign adversaries and competitors are increasingly targeting Canada in order to advance their own economic and national security interests,” says the 150-page briefing binder, obtained through access to information.
“Canada, like the majority of Western democracies, is a target of foreign state efforts to interfere with or damage our democratic processes (cyber and non cyber).”
“The word ‘increasing’ is actually very important here,” said former national security analyst Stephanie Carvin, now an associate professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
“It suggests that there may be some metrics by which they’re measuring these things to suggest that, in fact, there’s more attacks in new ways, perhaps even novel attacks that we’re seeing. So that is something that jumps out to me in this report.”
The redacted briefing note doesn’t name the foreign adversaries.
In the lead-up to the Oct. 22 election, sources told CBC News that Canada’s intelligence services were carefully monitoring attempts by six countries — China, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela — to influence the federal election. Top Canadian officials also were warned last year that China and India could try to use their links to diaspora communities in Canada to advance their own agendas.
Traditional spying still ‘the greatest danger’: CSIS
Carvin said those countries are likely still on the list of engaged adversaries, along with Russia and other states in the Middle East.
“Really, there’s a range of interests that foreign actors are interested in. They’re interested in targeting our energy sector, oil and gas. They’re also interested in just discrediting our democracy and democratic processes,” she said.
“In some ways, [they want to] just whip up anger and dissent about a number of issues to get Canadians angry at each other.”
As part of his new job at the cabinet table, Dominic Leblanc is tasked with supporting Canada’s democratic institutions, a role that had its own ministry last session. (Nicolas Steinbach/Radio-Canada)
John Townsend, a spokesperson for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said that over the years CSIS has seen multiple instances of foreign states targeting specific communities in Canada through human intelligence operations, the use of state-sponsored or foreign-influenced media and cyberattacks.
“Traditional interference by foreign espionage remains the greatest danger, but interference using cyber means continues to be a growing concern,” he said in an email to CBC.
In an attempt to prevent foreign meddling, the federal government set up an internal team — the “critical election incident public protocol panel” — to publicly sound the alarm if it saw evidence the October federal election was being undermined. It never did.
In the days immediately after the federal election, government officials said they did detect attempts to spread misinformation and disinformation during the election campaign — but not at a level high enough to trigger a public warning.
Ottawa also set up a special task force, known as SITE, which brought together Canada’s national security and intelligence agencies: CSIS, the Communications Security Establishment and the RCMP.
Both teams met regularly throughout the election. The security and intelligence community provided several threat briefings to political parties and ran tabletop exercises, according to the documents.
The briefing binder mentions “remaining gaps” in the way Canada responded to the election, but the examples were blacked out in the redacted pages.
A declassifed report is expected in the coming months.
The briefing package told LeBlanc that, given the pressing timeline of the campaign, most of the government’s pre-election pro-democracy initiatives focused exclusively on the election itself, “leaving broader issues of countering interference in Canada’s democratic institutions — i.e. public servants and government, politicians and political parties, media, the judiciary and others — aside.
“Interference in democratic institutions beyond the electoral cycle will require focused attention.”
A spokesperson for CSE, Canada’s foreign signal intelligence agency, said threats continue to change over time.
“Traditional hostile foreign threats have been persistent over the years, but they are now taking advantage of evolutions in technology,” said Evan Koronewski.
“However, as these threats evolve, so do our abilities to detect them and take preventative action.”
Disinformation should still be a source of concern, says the government memo, but fact-checking and traditional journalism have been helpful so far in debunking and correcting misinformation.
“While these efforts have been sufficient up to this point, a more fractured and divided Canada could make countering misinformation and disinformation more difficult.”
“I think Canadians should always be concerned,” said Carvin. “What we’ve seen in the past, say in 2016, is not what we saw in 2019. It might not be what we see in the future. Canada isn’t immune to these trends.”
LeBlanc was not available for an interview.
“We will continue to be vigilant in combatting any threat. Ensuring the security of our democratic processes is a priority for our government,” said a spokesperson for his office.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
