I should note that at DisinfoWatch, we were made aware of these efforts about two to three weeks into the writ period, and it took us maybe four or five days to analyze the data we received from various different sources, including sources within the Chinese community in Canada. We produced an election alert, which we posted to our website about a week and a half before election day. I think that as an independent civil society organization, we have the ability to act a bit more nimbly and quickly.
Now, did that alert prevent the interference from happening? No. It had already happened at that point. I don't know whether we were able to have any impact. However, I think that in future elections, the government and the organizations being set up inside of that to monitor elections should be much quicker to report instances of interference.
There were very simple instances that could have been reported quickly, including the Global Times piece that was published in Chinese state media, attacking the Conservative Party and its leader, Mr. O'Toole. That could have been reported very quickly.
In future elections, we need to improve those timelines to get that reporting out there. Any instances of interference and efforts to interfere in our elections should be reported much more quickly than they were during the last election.