Ottawa is considering a lower threshold for issuing warnings about foreign interference, the inquiry hears

The federal government is considering changes to the way it notifies Canadians of 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 has already activated groups charged with monitoring possible election interference and warning of the public.

Sutherland said the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol Panel has begun its work ahead of the next election and has already met five times. The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force is already operational, he added.

In the meantime, Sutherland said, the administration is working to update its plan to protect the election, which hasn’t been updated since 2021. He said that national security agencies are aware of the threats posed by the use of artificial intelligence and that this 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 created to send a signal about foreign interference large enough to influence the outcome of elections.

Sutherland said the threshold for notifying Canadians was intentionally 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 about events with a lower threshold, he said.

Sutherland said the administration’s understanding of the threat of foreign interference has also evolved. While the country once viewed it as something to watch out for during elections, it now realizes that it is a 365-day-a-year issue.

The foreign interference investigation led by Judge Marie-Josée Hogue was launched following media reports accusing China of meddling in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

In her first report, made public in May, Hogue found that while it was possible that foreign interference occurred at a small number of demonstrations, she concluded that this had no impact on 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 People’s Republic of China is a refined actor, a persistent actor, a patient actor,” said Caroline Xavier, head of the CSE, adding that China has become more assertive in recent years.

CSE Deputy Chief of Signals Intelligence Alia Tayyeb said the tactics and techniques used by state actors, and China in particular, are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

In addition to cyber threats, she said, “we see that actors, including the People’s Republic of China, continue to use traditional tools of foreign interference, such as the use of proxies, the use of proxy organizations and the use of state media.

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

Although CSE did not observe that Russia tried to interfere in the last elections, that does not mean that this will not happen in the future, Tayyeb said.

CSE officials described India as an emerging threat from foreign interference with a medium level of sophistication, but said the country aims to build a modernized cyber program.

Other countries CSE has seen attempt to exert foreign influence include North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia, said Sami Khoury, head of the Canadian Center for Cybersecurity.

In a witness statement filed by the investigation, CSE officials said they have also seen foreign techniques evolve “from simple espionage to ‘hack and leak,’ to the use of botnets to flood social media with disinformation, to the use of AI to amplify and harvest stories. big data.”

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

The investigation will be heard by officials from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) on Friday.