The federal government is considering changes to how Canadians are notified of foreign attempts to interfere in elections, including lowering the standards for informing the public about foreign attempts to interfere in elections.
Testifying before the inquiry into foreign interference in Canadian politics, Allen Sutherland, assistant cabinet secretary in the Privy Council Office (PCO), said the government has already set up a body tasked with monitoring and alerting the public to potential election interference. He said that
Mr Sutherland said the Significant Election Cases Committee has begun work in preparation for the next election and has already met five times. He added that the Committee on Security and Information Threats to Elections (SITE) has already been established and is operational.
Meanwhile, Sutherland said the government is working to update its plan to protect elections, which has not been updated since 2021. National security agencies are aware of the threat posed by the use of artificial intelligence and said it will be part of the plan. .
The government is also considering changing the role of the Serious Election Cases Official Panel, which was established to prosecute foreign interference serious enough to influence election results.
Sutherland said the bar for notifying Canadians was intentionally set very high because such warnings could disrupt elections. He said changes are being considered to allow the government to notify Canadians about low-threshold events.
Sutherland said the government’s understanding of the threat of foreign interference is also evolving. Where we once thought it was an issue to focus on during elections, we now recognize it as a 365-day-a-year issue.
The foreign interference inquiry, led by Judge Marie-Josée Hogue, was established following media reports accusing China of interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
In his first report, released in May, Hogue concluded that while there may have been foreign interference in a small number of ridings, it did not affect the overall election outcome.
Earlier in the day, officials from the Communications Security Administration (CSE), Canada’s electronic intelligence agency, told the Inquiry that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) now poses the biggest cybersecurity threat to Canada.
“China is a sophisticated actor, a tenacious actor, a patient actor,” said CSE Director General Caroline Xavier, adding that China has become more assertive in recent years.
Alia Tayeb, deputy director of signals intelligence at the CSE, said the tactics and techniques used by state actors, especially China, are becoming more sophisticated.
In addition to cyber threats, “we see actors, including China, continue to use traditional tools of foreign interference, including the use of proxies, the use of proxy organizations, and the use of state media,” she said. .
“In addition to cyber threats and the collection of big data, we can say that the use of social media campaigns is increasing to maintain the development of the digital environment.”
Although the CSE did not observe any attempts by Russia to interfere in the last election, that does not mean it will not interfere in the future, Tayeb said.
CSE officials described India as a new foreign interference threat of moderate sophistication, but said it was seeking to build a modernized cyber program.
Other countries the CSE sees as attempts at foreign influence are North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia, said Sami Khoury, director of the Canadian Center for Cyber Security.
In witness statements submitted to the inquiry, CSE officials also said foreign technology has evolved “from simple espionage to ‘hack-and-leak’ operations” and uses botnets to create fake social media accounts. He said he is witnessing an overflow of information and the use of AI to amplify and harvest the stories. Big data. ”
CSE officials are also aware of “national incidents” targeting states and territories, and said in August they were working with one state to help mitigate significant cyber incidents.
Friday’s inquiry is scheduled to hear from Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officials.
