China and Russia tried to interfere in last election, but to little avail, watchdog says
OTTAWA — China and Russia once again tried to interfere in Canada’s latest federal election but likely had minimal impact on the vote that was ultimately free and fair, said the foreign interference in elections watchdog.
“While foreign actors attempted to undermine it, it did not affect the integrity of the election. There were no significant security incidents observed during the election, no cyber threats and no incidents of violent expression,” Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force spokesperson Laurie-Anne Kempton told reporters Thursday.
SITE — composed of the RCMP, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Communications Security Establishment and Global Affairs Canada — is tasked with monitoring federal elections for foreign interference. But the public is only advised of foreign efforts if they meet a certain threshold for disclosure.
In its post-election report published on Thursday, the task force said it detected “small scale” efforts from foreign entities to influence the vote. Those ranged from transnational repression, “inauthentic and coordinated amplification” of Web content and online scams using politicians’ likeness.
But none of the foreign campaigns ultimately impacted voting nationally or locally in a meaningful way, the task force concluded.
Once again, the governments of China and Russia were the two main perpetrators of attempted foreign interference, mostly through online campaigns.
During weekly briefings during the election, SITE warned the public of two separate online campaigns that appeared backed by the Chinese government. The first was “inauthentic and coordinated” boosting of two posts on Chinese social media platform WeChat about Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The second was boosting of information about an arrest warrant and bounty issued last year by Chinese authorities on Honk Kong democracy activist and Conservative Party of Canada candidate Joseph Tay. The campaign also intentionally buried information about Tay that wasn’t related to the bounty.
The report reveals that SITE was made aware of the campaign against Tay weeks before it notified Canadians on April 21. The report says the campaign appeared to have little viewership online at first, but as engagement began to increase, it determined that it warranted advising the public.
“I would say, probably in the week before we came forward on that, it started to move to other platforms, and there was an increase in the number of messages, increase in the awareness of it, and so it was amplified,” Kempton explained.
“And so, the panel felt that it was important that this group inform Canadians before election day,” she added in reference to the panel of five top bureaucrats tasked with deciding when a foreign interference threat reaches the threshold of a public advisory.
Russia, the report said, made mild attempts to influence public online discourse regarding certain unnamed political candidates.
“The SITE TF observed efforts 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,” noted the report.
Despite warning at the onset of the election that India and Pakistan would likely try to interfere in the result, the post-campaign report said nothing about if such efforts were ultimately detected and addressed.
In the pre-campaign report, SITE noted that “the Government of India had been increasingly relying on Canada-based proxies and contacts to conduct foreign interference-related activities.”
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) deputy director Vanessa Lloyd said all suspected instances of foreign interference were “thoroughly examined” by SITE member organization and brought to the panel of five to determine if they warranted an advisory to the public. She did not specify if any such cases involved India or Pakistan.
But the report also said that foreign interference is becoming harder to detect as techniques become more sophisticated and subtle.
“Due to an increase in public awareness and scrutiny of foreign interference, threat actors likely adapted their tradecraft to further conceal their activity, making it even more challenging to detect,” the report read.
The task force said it did not detect any “significant” cyber incidents or breaches relating to the election.
But it did notice cyber criminals beginning to use the likeness of party leaders such as Prime Minister Mark Carney and then-NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to push online scams and cryptocurrencies. The scams sometimes paraded as falsified articles made to appear like they were from legitimate news sources.
“The SITE TF observed fake news articles and online publicity with sensational headlines about Canadian elections that were being linked to websites promoting financial fraud schemes,” read the report.
“These incidents are indicative of a broader trend in impersonation of political figures for the purposes of online fraud and confidence scams.”
National Post
cnardi@postmedia.com
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.