I appreciate that, Chair. Thank you very much.
Thank you to all for appearing this morning.
I recognize that the Competition Bureau and the bank have only peripheral suggestions that might be applied in the recommendations we make to government on completion of this report on the digital vulnerability of the Canadian electoral system, or threats to the Canadian electoral system. Therefore, I'd like to direct all of my time to the CSE witnesses today.
As a politician, I participate in social media almost entirely for political benefit, and there are significant benefits to using Facebook, Instagram and other social media—Twitter.
This week the digital threat was brought home to me when my Instagram account was seized by someone from outside of the country. My Facebook account was hacked and took some time to be recovered.
It brought to mind the so-called Beyoncé trick, which previous witnesses have spoken to before the committee. In the United States, in the last federal election, a Facebook fan page was created paying tribute to Beyoncé, which accumulated millions of followers. Then, in the final days of the election campaign—and this was set up, we understand, by Russian players at one level or another—messaging went out which, in the end it has been concluded, was aimed at discouraging black voters from voting in that campaign, or in some of the campaigns.
We asked one of our previous witnesses, Dr. Ben Scott, about how Canadians might protect themselves from the sort of Trojan Horse social media time bomb that was set to go off in the decision-making period in an election campaign. He suggested that agencies like the CSE would be playing what he called "red teaming", Cold War game playing, in trying to anticipate threats, how one would respond to threats, how one would see this as a fraudulent attempt to interfere with the election process. He essentially said that security agencies have an ability—and I recognize you have no authority over social media—and certainly American security agencies have an ability, to see foreign intervention or foreign players in the social media sphere.
I'm wondering if you could address what the CSE is doing in that area.