The federal election saw instances of foreign interference such as transnational repression and online scams and disinformation campaigns, officials tasked with monitoring the vote said.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Canada saw attempts at foreign interference during the April election campaign, but none of them ultimately affected the integrity of the vote, according to officials who were tasked with monitoring it.
On Thursday, the federal government published two reports: one looking back on the implementation of the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol during the 45th general election, and a second one from the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force.
The protocol outlines when and how to communicate an incident that threatens Canada’s election integrity during a campaign. It is administered by a group of senior public servants, known as the panel of five. They include several senior deputy ministers and the Clerk of the Privy Council, who is Canada’s top bureaucrat.
The SITE Task Force comprises experts from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Communications Security Establishment, Global Affairs Canada and the RCMP.
Laurie-Anne Kempton, a Privy Council Office official who is the spokesperson for the task force, told reporters Thursday that there were no significant security incidents, cyberthreats or incidents of violent extremism observed during the election.
“While foreign actors attempted to undermine it, they did not affect the integrity of the election,” she said. “When Canadians went to the polls, they freely and fairly exercised their right to choose their democratic representatives.”
The task force’s report said it observed instances of foreign interference such as transnational repression, inauthentic and co-ordinated amplification of online content, and online threats such as scams and disinformation. Incidents were observed “at a small scale” and often remain difficult to attribute to a foreign actor, it said.
Throughout the election campaign, task force officials briefed media on what they were seeing, including a foreign-interference operation from China that targeted Conservative candidate Joe Tay, a critic of Beijing’s crackdown on civil rights in Hong Kong.
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Officials also disclosed that they observed an operation targeting Liberal Leader Mark Carney. It was from a Chinese-language news account linked to the People’s Republic of China, and happened on the social-media platform WeChat.
In its report, the SITE Task Force said it also observed attempts by the Russian Federation to leverage its foreign information manipulation and interference networks online.
“This consists of a network of websites that launder and amplify Russian government-controlled media outlets’ aggregated items about Canadian candidates and the election throughout the election period,” it said.
The report said that the posts received low levels of engagement and views, and therefore it was unlikely Canadians viewed the content.
Ms. Kempton said the members of the panel of bureaucrats continue to meet, “mindful that it is a minority Parliament.”
Larisa Galadza, an associate assistant deputy minister with Global Affairs Canada, said that threat actors understand that the time between elections is as much an opportunity as the elections themselves.
She added the department continues to work to ensure Canada is as strong as possible and is ready for when the next general election happens.