Chapter 4: The Committee’s assessment of the response to foreign interference in democratic processes and institutions
Special Report on Foreign Interference in Canada's Democratic Processes and Institutions
136. Foreign interference is not new. For over thirty years, CSIS has been reporting to successive governments on attempts by foreign actors to interfere in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions. The Committee’s 2019 report on foreign interference marked the first time the issue had been examined by a review body. The Committee was concerned by what it found: Canada was the target of pervasive and sustained foreign interference activities, which the Committee believed posed “a significant risk to the rights and freedoms of Canadians and to the country’s sovereignty.” Footnote 407 This remains the case today.
137. The Committee’s previous review did not specifically examine the government’s response to threats of foreign interference in the run-up to 43rd federal election, given the government’s early efforts to address threats to the election process. These efforts would result in the Plan to Protect Democracy, under which the government established the Critical Elections Incident Public Protocol, amended the Canada Elections Act, and implemented mechanisms and initiatives to respond to misinformation and disinformation campaigns. The government later took steps to address the threat of foreign interference more broadly, specifically by establishing an internal, whole-of-government strategy to address this threat, including the creation of the role of Foreign Interference Coordinator and consultations for a foreign influence transparency registry act. The government also adapted its intelligence priorities to learn more about the threat of foreign interference, which brought new information to light about how foreign actors interfere in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions. In short, the government has launched or implemented a number of strategic policy initiatives to address foreign interference since our 2019 report, including in areas which specifically address foreign interference targeting democratic processes and institutions.
138. Operational departments have also acted to different degrees. CSIS has conducted a number of Threat Reduction Measures to counter specific instances of foreign interference in democratic processes or institutions, collected and reported intelligence on states and individuals involved in foreign interference in Canada to government, and briefed a number of Parliamentarians on the threat. Under the Ministerial Authorization for Defensive Cyber Operations issued by the Minister of Defence, CSE planned two defensive cyber operations to protect election infrastructure during the two most recent federal elections, which proved to be unnecessary. Additionally, CSE conducted operations under a Ministerial Authorization for Active Cyber Operations to counter *** foreign interference, and collected intelligence on specific foreign actors. The RCMP created a small unit to coordinate investigations of foreign interference and initiated a number of investigations, although it cannot determine exactly how many, nor does it distinguish between those involving democratic processes and institutions and other investigations into foreign interference more generally. No charges have been laid in respect of foreign interference in democratic processes and institutions. For its part, GAC identified a number of online threats through its Rapid Response Mechanism, and expelled one mid-level diplomat for conducting foreign interference following significant media pressure.
139. Notwithstanding these efforts and the considerable intelligence reporting on specific foreign interference activities targeting Canada’s democratic processes and institutions, the Committee notes that the intelligence community continues to assess that threat actors view Canada as a permissive environment to pursue their strategic interests. Footnote 408
140. The Committee’s assessment explores the persistent disconnect between the gravity of the threat and the measures taken to counter it, a gap which the Committee believes is the reason why threat actors continue to view Canada’s democratic processes and institutions as easy targets for foreign interference. As noted in Chapter 1, effective threat mitigation seeks to counter a hostile actor’s intent, capability and opportunity to act. While the government has limited ability to address intent and capability, it is accountable for addressing vulnerabilities that permit threat actors to interfere. The state of foreign interference in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions cannot be understood without understanding how and why these vulnerabilities persist. The following assessment is divided into three themes: the threat posed to our democratic processes and institutions; the systemic challenges which contribute to Canada being a permissive environment for foreign actors to interfere; and the role that all Parliamentarians must play in reducing the threat. The Committee also shares its views on the leaks of sensitive material and the integrity of the 43rd and 44th federal elections.
The threat of foreign interference in democratic processes and institutions
141. Over the course of its review, the Committee heard from the Prime Minister, three Ministers, and 34 officials from eight departments and agencies, and reviewed over 4,000 documents, including over 1,000 intelligence products. On the basis of this information, the Committee believes there is ample intelligence to support the intelligence community’s assertion that foreign interference in democratic processes and institutions constitutes a continuing, significant threat to Canada’s national security.
142. The PRC is clearly the most prolific actor. In its efforts to protect and enhance the legitimacy and stability of the Chinese Communist Party domestically and abroad, the PRC employs a comprehensive approach to targeting and leveraging virtually all aspects of Canada’s democratic processes and institutions to advance its strategic interests (see paragraph 7 for the Committee’s definition of democratic processes and institutions). The Committee underlines the scale and sophistication of the PRC's efforts, which comprise a complex array of covert and overt mechanisms, using PRC and non-PRC entities, ranging from community groups to private enterprises, to accomplish foreign interference in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions. While not as widespread as the PRC's efforts, India’s activities are also of significant concern. India seeks to cultivate relationships with a variety of witting and unwitting individuals across Canadian society with the intent of inappropriately exerting India’s influence across all orders of government, particularly to stifle or discredit criticism of the Government of India. The Committee was already aware of India’s efforts to interfere in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions through its review of the Prime Minister’s official visit to India in 2018 and its 2019 foreign interference review. This review reinforced the Committee’s understanding of India’s activities.
143. In addition to interference against Canadian democratic processes and institutions by the PRC, India and to a limited extent Pakistan, other countries, notably Iran *** engaged in episodic foreign interference directed towards suppressing dissidents and critics in Canada. Known as “transnational repression,” these activities represent one of the most egregious forms of foreign interference. The Prime Minister’s announcement in Parliament on September 18, 2023 that Canada’s intelligence community had been actively pursuing credible allegations of the Government of India’s involvement the murder of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023 is the latest example. Footnote 409 The Committee condemns this and all instances of transnational repression and considers them a threat to Canadian values, human rights and democratic freedoms. However, they are not the focus of this review.
144. In reflecting on the significant body of intelligence pointing to the PRC and India’s targeting of democratic processes and institutions, the Committee observed that in almost all cases, the activities could not be construed as regular diplomatic lobbying. Rather, they clearly met the definition of foreign interference as described in Section 2 of the CSIS Act: contrary to Canada’s national interest, and deceptive, clandestine or threatening. More worryingly from the Committee’s perspective, these states could engage in such activities owing at least in part to challenges and gaps which the Committee had previously identified to the government in 2019. These challenges help to perpetuate a permissive environment for foreign actors to operate.
A permissive environment: How systemic challenges in responding to foreign interference provide opportunities for foreign actors
145. There are four significant unaddressed challenges which help to create an environment where foreign states may interfere in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions. These are: differences in thresholds for response to foreign interference; an absence of robust tools to counter the threat; limitations in the dissemination, assessment and use of intelligence; and the lack of effective communication with federal parliamentarians. Each are discussed below.
Absence of a common threshold for action
146. The first challenge is the absence of an agreed threshold for action. In its 2019 report, the Committee observed that “[s]ecurity and intelligence organizations do not share a common understanding of the threat, including its gravity in Canada and its most common manifestations.” Footnote 410 In many ways, this situation continues. While departments and agencies appear to have coalesced around a similar definition of what constitutes foreign interference, differences still persist in measuring the gravity of the threat, recognizing interference in practice and determining thresholds for action. This is particularly problematic in policy departments like PCO and GAC, organizations which make decisions, including on whether to brief ministers on intelligence and to recommend what actions to take in response.
147. Two examples from our review are particularly salient. The first is a decision not to brief the Prime Minister on important intelligence. In February 2023, the Clerk of the Privy Council, the National Security and Intelligence Advisor (NSIA) to the Prime Minister, and deputy heads from CSIS, CSE, GAC and PS met and agreed that a highly sensitive and comprehensive intelligence assessment on foreign interference should be briefed to the Prime Minister. However, the NSIA later concluded that the activities did not constitute foreign interference and did not share the assessment with the Prime Minister.
148. The second example is the decision to expel PRC diplomat Zhao Wei. Until leaks forced the government’s hand, GAC had frequently dismissed CSIS reporting on foreign interference activities in democratic processes and institutions, including those conducted by Mr. Zhao. GAC believed that CSIS had misunderstood regular diplomatic behaviour and that the behaviour “did not reach the threshold.” We note, however, that GAC has no threshold, codified or customary, to make such decisions, and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is silent in this regard.
149. Both examples illustrate the lack of a consistent understanding of a threshold above which permissible diplomatic activities become foreign interference. They also illustrate the difficulty in moving from identifying a problem to addressing it. While the Committee recognizes that defining something as complicated as a threshold for action is difficult, and the absence of a Criminal Code offence or other statutory definitions no doubt compounds the problem, decisions as important as these should rest on firmer foundations.
Absence of robust tools
150. The Committee heard repeatedly over the course of its review that an outdated legal framework is hampering the government’s response to foreign interference. There are a number of areas for reform. Perhaps the most important are changes to the Criminal Code and the Security of Information Act, for two reasons. First, amendments should provide clear and modern definitions of foreign interference, helping to clarify what activities do and do not qualify as threats. That should ensure departments develop standardized definitions of what constitutes thresholds for action. Second, changes to these statutes would provide more numerous and specific offences for the RCMP to investigate, and signal to current and would-be offenders the gravity of their behaviour. The same logic applies to the proposed legislation for a Foreign Influence Transparency Registry. Crafted carefully to avoid the stigmatization of ethnocultural communities and to protect Canadian rights and freedoms, the legislation should clarify what behaviours qualify as interference, and act both as a deterrent to agents of foreign states and to provide the RCMP with offences to investigate. Similar legislation in allied states has proven to be a useful tool for police to respond to foreign interference.
151. Changes to the CSIS Act are similarly overdue. The CSIS Act is showing its age, particularly with respect to countering foreign interference. Over the course of this review, the Committee noted that CSIS was using its authority to conduct Threat Reduction Measures (TRM) to brief some federal parliamentarians on foreign interference threats posed to them by foreign actors. In this, we believe that CSIS acted in good faith: section 19 (1) of the CSIS Act does not provide CSIS the authority to share classified information to individuals outside the government, but CSIS needed to respond to specific threats and it used a novel authority to do so. At the same time, the Committee believes this is far from ideal. The TRM authority exists to permit CSIS to take measures to reduce a threat where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a particular activity constitutes a threat to the security of Canada. It was not intended to address CSIS's inability to share classified information outside the government.
152. The requirement for these changes was identified by government departments in 2018, and highlighted by this Committee in 2019. Policy work to develop the Hostile Activities by State Actors (HASA) strategy, which recommended these statutory changes, was well advanced by fall 2019. It took *** the Government two more years to endorse the strategy, in June 2022, another nine months to launch consultations on a foreign influence registry in March 2023, and another eight months to launch public consultations on amendments to the Criminal Code, the SOIA and the CSIS Act in November 2023. At the end of this review, the government assured the Committee that it intended to table legislation for the Foreign Influence Transparency Registry “imminently.” While the Committee welcomes that commitment and looks forward to seeing the bill, the Committee believes that delays in launching public consultations and tabling legislation were unnecessary, and represent a lost opportunity to build upon the changes the government implemented in 2018 to address threats posed by foreign interference in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions.
153. There are two other areas for statutory reform. The first is in the area of “intelligence and evidence.” Intelligence agencies take great care in protecting their sensitive collection techniques, confidential sources and intelligence shared from allies. The disclosure of such information in a court could reduce the effectiveness of future operations, endanger sources and damage relations with foreign partners. Consequently, if CSIS or CSE decides to share intelligence with law enforcement, it does so knowing that it risks being disclosed in court if the police investigation leads to a criminal trial. The Committee noted numerous instances over the course of its review in which intelligence agencies did not share information with enforcement bodies, including the RCMP and the Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections, for this reason. The Committee believes this is a critical problem, where significant differences exist between operational organizations and the Department of Justice. The creation of new criminal offences for foreign interference activities will matter little if law enforcement bodies still cannot rely on information derived from intelligence collection. This is a foundational, complex issue which merits its own review. In the meantime, the government should review the legislative options which have been developed that could start to address the problem.
154. The second area for legislative reform is the regulation of political nomination processes. The Committee was disturbed to learn how easily foreign actors take advantage of loopholes and vulnerabilities in political party governance and administration to support preferred candidates or to gain access to other influential positions within the parties, most notably in the context of candidate nomination processes. This is a critical gap, because a number of ridings in Canada are considered “safe seats” for one party or another, so a successful nomination may amount to a candidate’s election. Because the number of votes required to sway riding nominations is so small, they are a useful avenue for foreign states to engineer the election of their preferred candidate. While the Canada Elections Act imposes administrative penalties on fundraising by a foreign entity, Canada does not criminalize interfering in nominations or in any other political party process. The government should do so. It should also engage all political parties to determine whether party nomination processes should be included within the framework of the Canada Elections Act, subject to monitoring by Elections Canada and the Office of the Commissioner for Canada Elections.
155. In the meantime, federal political parties themselves have a role to play. Parties need to reduce or eliminate opportunities for foreign states to directly or indirectly interfere in a foundational part of our democratic system — the nomination process — by identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in their own systems and processes, including in areas such as age and residency requirements and fundraising. More generally, the government should work with all parties to establish the means to allow CSIS and other intelligence organizations to raise with party leaders specific instances of foreign interference occurring prior to, during and after an election, so that those instances may be addressed. The Committee further encourages the government to give the same consideration to other orders of government.
156. The Committee does not call for legislative reform lightly. As legislators, Committee members recognize the complexity and significance of statutory reform. However, it has become clear that the initiatives implemented by the government in 2018 — the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol, the Panel, SITE and the Rapid Response Mechanism — are insufficient on their own to address the threat. While the Committee recognizes that CSIS's Threat Reduction Measures and CSE's Active and Defensive Cyber Operations play important roles in addressing interference in democratic processes and institutions, their use is limited by circumstance (among other things) and their effects are hard to measure in terms of disruption or deterrence. Addressing these limitations requires, at least in part, specific legislative reforms. In short, the security and intelligence community needs more tools. The government should see that it has them and be properly resourced to use them.
The distribution, assessment and use of intelligence
157. It is clear that there are systemic problems in the distribution, assessment and use of intelligence to inform decision-making on foreign interference. In the time period under review, the government adapted its intelligence priorities to learn more about the threat of foreign interference, causing intelligence organizations to increase their collection and assessment. It is unclear whether this change made a material difference to the officials in departments responsible for policymaking and decision-making.
158. The Committee wishes to underscore that decision-makers from policy departments (Privy Council Office, Public Safety and Global Affairs Canada), not intelligence organizations (CSIS, CSE), are ultimately responsible for providing policy advice and recommendations on how to respond to intelligence about foreign interference. In that respect, the Committee is concerned that, while intelligence organizations have increased their reporting on foreign interference, policy departments lack the instinct to make responsive recommendations based on that reporting. On the one hand, the Committee observed strong, if slow, engagement by the three policy departments in the development of strategic policy proposals, like the Hostile Activities by State Actors Strategy. On the other, the Committee saw little evidence that these departments saw a role for themselves in responding to intelligence reporting by providing separate policy advice to their respective ministers (although the Committee notes that in March 2023 GAC commenced briefing the Minister of Foreign Affairs on intelligence reporting relevant to the security of Canada, whereas it had previously focused on international issues). In fact, the Committee found few cases where these departments made any recommendations to their respective ministers when provided intelligence on specific threats or summary assessments of threat actors, except in reaction to the media. At the same time, it does not appear that the Ministers responsible for those departments, who are ultimately accountable for protecting Canada against foreign interference, requested policy advice in response to intelligence reporting. If this context persists, it will not matter how much the intelligence community collects and assesses if its reports are simply read by officials and then ignored.
159. That said, the intelligence community could make it easier for their reports to have an impact. First, the dissemination of intelligence products across the government is uneven, with the most important items marked for a very limited number of senior-level officials, who often have little time to read and digest such information, and are not shared with the policy experts who would be responsible for advising on a proposed response. Additionally, systems for dissemination are inconsistent across the intelligence community: notably, CSE's electronic dissemination system permits clients (i.e., those that receive intelligence products) to track readership and search for items, while CSIS's distribution system lacks this function. This inconsistency creates challenges for clients in developing strategic policy advice. Clients must either develop their own summary of intelligence reporting over time, which is difficult because they are not intelligence professionals, or they must rely on intelligence agencies to provide summary products and assessments for use in decision-making, which is difficult because intelligence organizations are not expert on the mandates and authorities of their clients.
160. Second, intelligence agencies often remove information that would be salient for officials in the belief that the information is too sensitive or on the assumption that the sanitized information would still be compelling. Conversely, in some cases, senior officials have requested that intelligence agencies pull back published reports because they believed the information was too politically sensitive. Not only does this behaviour create a chilling effect on intelligence collection and assessment, depriving the government of the full context of its decisions, it also undermines a core public service value of providing “fearless advice” and risks politicizing the community’s own intelligence reporting to suit the inclinations of the government of the day. This issue should be of concern for this and all future governments.
161. In short, intelligence must be both available and specific enough to be persuasive to decision-makers. As such, the Committee believes there is space for closer collaboration between intelligence producers and consumers in drafting intelligence assessments based on a shared understanding of the threat and a common threshold for action, where each side can bring to bear their expertise and understanding of their mandates. The Committee believes such collaboration would strengthen the work of two new governance bodies. The first is the Deputy Minister Committee on Intelligence Response, which the Committee understands as a forum for senior public servants to consider intelligence reporting from a government-wide perspective, weigh national security against other important considerations, including international relations, and develop recommendations to support decision making by relevant Ministers or Cabinet. The second and most important body is Cabinet itself. The Committee welcomes the creation of the National Security Council (NSC) and the Prime Minister’s stated commitment to its success. The Committee hopes that the Council will not only drive necessary reforms in the security and intelligence community, especially as they pertain to foreign interference in democratic processes and institutions, but also provide an effective forum to discuss specific threats and take decisions to address them. More importantly, the Committee hopes that these bodies will strengthen the accountability of government in addressing foreign interference threats.
Engagement with Parliamentarians
162. The final tool which the Committee emphasizes is important to address foreign interference is engagement with Parliamentarians. In its 2018 report on the Prime Minister’s official visit to India and its 2019 report on foreign interference, the Committee recommended that all members of the House of Commons and the Senate receive briefings regarding foreign interference upon being sworn in and regularly thereafter. It did so because Parliamentarians are often at the center of interference activities by foreign states. While the Committee recognizes that CSIS has provided briefings to some members of Parliament, a comprehensive briefing strategy covering all Parliamentarians was not implemented despite PCO seeking the Prime Minister’s approval on two occasions. The Committee considers the Prime Minister’s lack of action on this recommendation to be a serious omission. This initiative was comparatively simple to implement: PCO and CSIS were ready to act and could have done so quickly. That it was not represents an unfortunate and potentially consequential missed opportunity.
The role of Parliamentarians in addressing foreign interference
163. The Committee recognizes that the problem of foreign interference in democratic institutions and processes is not the government’s alone to solve. Parliamentarians have a role to play as well. The Committee has seen considerable evidence that Parliamentarians across all parties and groups are potential targets for interference activities of foreign states and actors because of the roles they play in Parliament, in Cabinet and within the communities they represent. As such, Parliamentarians need to ensure ethical and lawful conduct in their engagement and activities with foreign officials. The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and the Senate Ethics Officer could play a role, in this regard, if they were respectively empowered to provide Parliamentarians with direction and advice on how to avoid exposure to foreign interference, and to investigate allegations linked to foreign interference. More broadly, Parliamentarians should also consider what vulnerabilities persist in areas that they themselves control, such as their official business, including sponsored travel, party nominations or engagements with foreign officials. In doing so, it would become it harder for foreign states to target them and their parties.
164. Unfortunately, the Committee has also seen troubling intelligence that some Parliamentarians are, in the words of the intelligence services, “semi-witting or witting” participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics. These examples include:
- Communicating frequently with foreign missions before or during a political campaign to obtain support from community groups or businesses which the diplomatic missions promise to quietly mobilize in a candidate’s favour;
- Accepting knowingly or through willful blindness funds or benefits from foreign missions or their proxies which have been layered or otherwise disguised to conceal their source;
- Providing foreign diplomatic officials with privileged information on the work or opinions of fellow Parliamentarians, knowing that such information will be used by those officials to inappropriately pressure Parliamentarians to change their positions;
- Responding to the requests or direction of foreign officials to improperly influence Parliamentary colleagues or Parliamentary business to the advantage of a foreign state; and,
- Providing information learned in confidence from the government to a known intelligence officer of a foreign state.
These are particularly concerning examples of behaviour by a few Parliamentarians. Some may be illegal, but are unlikely to lead to criminal charges, owing to Canada’s failure to address the long-standing issue of protecting classified information and methods in judicial processes. Regardless, all the behaviours are deeply unethical and, the Committee would submit, contrary to the oaths and affirmations Parliamentarians take to conduct themselves in the best interest of Canada. While some of the Committee’s recommendations should help the government to address instances of foreign interference abetted by Parliamentarians, the Committee reminds its colleagues that their duty as Parliamentarians is to the people of Canada.
Committee comments
The Committee’s comment on unauthorized disclosure of intelligence (the leaks)
165. The genesis of this review was media reporting based on unauthorized leaks of highly sensitive intelligence. It is not the Committee’s mandate to investigate the leaks, nor comment on individual allegations reported in the media. That said, the Committee is deeply troubled by both the leaks and the media’s decision to publish material derived from highly classified intelligence. There are justifiable reasons why the government cannot share information with the public, not least of which is to protect confidential sources and methods and the integrity of its relationships with allies. The leaks may well have *** undermined specific aspects of Canada’s national security. They certainly have provided hostile threat actors with critical information about the government’s capabilities, vulnerabilities and plans, doing significant damage to intelligence collection efforts and to Canada’s reputation as a trusted foreign partner. The Committee rejects any notion that the individual or individuals responsible for the leaks acted as patriots or whistleblowers.
166. On the other hand, the Committee acknowledges an uncomfortable truth. Prior to the leaks, there was little sense of urgency between elected officials and senior decision-makers to address outstanding gaps to this important and well-documented threat to national security. Regrettably, the leaks were the principal catalyst for the government to start considering key legislative reforms and to take meaningful actions against particular states. But the ends do not justify the means and that is not how our system should work. Canada is a parliamentary democracy. The illegal actions of one or more individuals should not drive policy and legislative changes. The elected government, with the support of Parliament, must set the agenda. It is unfortunate that it took leaks to do so.
The Committee’s comment on the Critical Elections Incident Public Protocol and the integrity of the 43rd and 44th federal elections
167. As the Canadian public has learned from the reports of the Critical Elections Incident Public Protocol and the Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, the government was aware of foreign interference activities during the 43rd and 44th general elections. Often, these activities targeted specific political candidates and ridings. However, the reports agreed that the overall integrity of the respective elections was maintained. While the Committee did not focus exclusively on the 43rd and 44th elections, it did not observe any material in its review to suggest that the Protocol reports’ or the Independent Special Rapporteur’s conclusions were incorrect. Nonetheless, it notes two concerns.
168. First, the Committee cautions future Panels about relying too heavily on a clear link to a foreign state. In the case of the potential disinformation campaign about the Conservative Party’s position on the PRC flagged by Kenny Chiu and the Honourable Erin O’Toole, the Committee is concerned that the Protocol set too high a bar by relying on definitive state attribution when the indicators of a coordinated campaign were evident. Direct state attribution will always be challenging, if not impossible, given states’ efforts to conceal disinformation campaigns through proxies and other means. It appears that the Rapid Response Mechanism is successfully addressing this dynamic in its June 2023 public announcement of an information campaign targeting Member of Parliament Michael Chong. Implementation of the Protocol should evolve in a similar manner.
169. Second, the Committee joins the authors of those reports in noting the difficulty in determining the effects of foreign interference in specific ridings. Foreign states and their proxies clearly intended and attempted to interfere in the elections, but to the extent that can be determined they were not successful in swaying the overall outcome of the election. This should not give Canadians great comfort. By expanding its review of foreign interference activities directed at democratic processes and institutions outside of the previous two elections, the Committee saw concerning intelligence of foreign states interfering in, for example, specific nomination processes and riding elections. The Committee was disturbed to learn that these foreign states often believed their efforts had an impact, which would likely encourage similar behaviour in the future.
170. In the Committee’s view, foreign interference in even one riding is too many. The threat is persistent and pervasive. The government must ensure that foreign interference is not left unchecked, lest it become determinative both in future elections at the party nomination and riding levels and more broadly in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions.