How Ottawa can help local elections officials fight foreign interference

When Justice Marie-Josée Hogue delivered her findings on foreign interference in Canada 18 months ago, the threat to Canadian democracy was growing. Today, it is even worse as ever more foreign actors seek to interfere in Canada and destabilize local elections and local democracy. Alberta’s Oct. 19 referendum, alarmingly, is already being targeted.

Big questions remain about whether the overstretched election-management bodies (EMBs) responsible for election integrity across Canada have the capacity to meet these growing threats. Amendments to the Canada Elections Act in the just-passed Bill C-25 that will take action on some of Justice Hogue’s recommendations and strengthen existing defences against foreign interference are welcome, but support for provinces, territories and municipalities remains insufficient.

Federal officials must ensure they are maximizing information-sharing and co-ordination, and using all available policy and legal instruments to assist EMBs across Canada in tackling the challenge, because the implications reverberate beyond Western Canada this fall.

The separatist movement in Alberta has received a boost from a variety of bad actors: inauthentic accounts linked to Russia that amplify separatists’ content, grifters based in Indonesia profiteering off the movement and people in the Netherlands hiring actors to masquerade as authentic Albertans on social media. Then there are concerns about influential figures in and around the Trump administration cultivating ties with Alberta separatists. U.S.-based actors could be major amplifiers – and financial sponsors of – election-related messaging as Alberta marches toward the most consequential provincial vote in Canada since Quebec’s independence referendum more than 30 years ago.

One goal that foreign actors have when interfering in an election is to fuel speculation that the election process was tampered with and results cannot be trusted. The burden of proof to convince the public otherwise largely falls on EMBs.

Elections Alberta has already had to address the misinformation and vitriol surrounding the citizens-initiative petition process for the forthcoming referendum. Now it must prepare for one of the largest electoral undertakings in Canadian history: 10 individual referendum questions and more than 60,000 new temporary staff, while dealing with recent changes passed by the provincial legislature that require the hand-counting of ballots. Before even considering the added challenge of foreign interference, these pressures place significant demands on the institutions responsible for ensuring the election process remains trusted and credible. Federal bodies must establish

a sustainable informationsharing framework with other levels of government as soon as possible. Threat intelligence must be sanitized, declassified and made usable to election administrators on the ground. Regular briefings on emerging and potential threats must be delivered to elections personnel, not just to provincial and territorial political leadership.

It’s not just information-sharing that needs to be codified. Should foreign entities send money through Canadian third parties for the purpose of creating or boosting content online to influence public opinion ahead of the Oct. 19 referendum, it is debatable whether such activity would be in violation of the Canada Elections Act – or Bill C-25, which amended it – if it steers clear of direct political advertising and specific ballot questions. If those foreign entities aren’t directly tied to a foreign government or political party, it is also debatable whether it would violate the Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act.

Public Safety Canada, the Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner and Elections Canada should all be liaising with EMBs and, more importantly, raising public awareness about what is in and out of bounds when it comes to accepting foreign money to influence not just Canadian politics, but also Canadian public opinion. To be clear, this is not a hypothetical scenario. Ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Russian state media officials paid Tenet Media, a company established by two Canadian citizens, US$10-million to launder Kremlin propaganda through authentic American conservative influencers, unwitting to the Russian hand feeding them. Picturing a similar situation unfolding around the Alberta referendum doesn’t require a vivid imagination.

As long as divisive wedge issues like separatism percolate in Canadian politics and public debate, there will be opportunities for malign foreign actors to undermine the strength and resilience of Canadian democracy. Federal partners in Ottawa must do all they can to tangibly increase support to elections administrators across Canada who increasingly face these threats head-on. After all, malign foreign actors won’t wait for the next federal election cycle to act; Oct. 19 is right around the corner.

David Salvo is the managing director for Transatlantic Policy and Programming at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue US.