Ottawa considering lower threshold for issuing alerts on foreign interference, inquiry hears

The federal government is considering changes to the way it lets Canadians know about attempts at foreign interference in elections, such as lowering the threshold for alerting the public that an attempt has been made.

Testifying before the inquiry into foreign interference in Canadian politics, Allen Sutherland, assistant secretary to the cabinet in the Privy Council Office (PCO), said the government already has activated groups charged with monitoring potential election interference and alerting the public.

Sutherland said the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol Panel has started its work leading up to the next election and has already met five times. The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) task force is already up and operating, he added.

Meanwhile, Sutherland said, the government is working to update its plan to protect elections, which has not been updated since 2021. He said national security agencies are aware of the threats posed by the use of artificial intelligence and that will be part of the plan.

The government is also considering changes to the role played by the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol Panel, which was set up to blow the whistle on foreign interference significant enough to affect the results of an election.

Sutherland said the threshold for informing Canadians was deliberately set very high because of the risk that such an alert could disrupt an election. Changes are being considered to allow the government to inform Canadians of lower-threshold events, he said. 

Sutherland said the government's understanding of the threat of foreign interference has also evolved. While it once considered it something to watch for during elections, it now realizes that it is a 365-days-per-year issue.

The foreign interference inquiry headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue was set up following media reports which accused China of interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

In her initial report, made public in May, Hogue found that while it was possible that foreign interference occurred in a small number of ridings, she concluded it did not affect the overall election results.

Earlier in the day, officials from the Communications and Security Establishment (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.

"The PRC is a sophisticated actor, a persistent actor, a patient actor," said Caroline Xavier, chief of the CSE, adding that China has become more assertive in the last few years.

Alia Tayyeb, CSE's deputy chief of signals intelligence, said the tactics and techniques used by state actors, and China in particular, are becoming more sophisticated.

In addition to cyber threats, she said, "we see actors, including the PRC, continue to use traditional foreign interference tools such as use of proxies, use of proxy organizations, use of state-run media.

"In addition to the cyber threats, I would say we have seen increased use of social media campaigns, in keeping developments in the digital landscape, in addition to that big data collection."

While CSE didn't observe Russia trying to meddle in the last election, that doesn't mean it won't in the future, said Tayyeb.

CSE officials described India as an emerging foreign interference threat with medium-level sophistication, but said it aspires to build a modernized cyber program.

Other countries CSE has seen attempting foreign influence are North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia, said Sami Khoury, head of the Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity. 

In a witness statement tabled by the inquiry, CSE officials said they have also seen foreign techniques evolve "from simple espionage, to 'hack and leak',' to leveraging botnets to flood social media with disinformation, to using AI to amplify narratives and harvest big data."

CSE officials said they are also aware of "nation state incidents" targeting provinces or territories and in August were working with one province to help mitigate a serious cyber incident.

On Friday, the inquiry is scheduled to hear from officials from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).