Evidence of meeting #21 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Deputy Director, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.
Thank you, Ms. Normandin.
That would be beyond the purview of the members you have before you today, Madam Normandin.
What I can say is that should a new national security strategy be issued, we would reflect on how that applies to our responsibilities as SITE members in going forward to a next democratic process, whether that be a by-election or a general election, and—
Associate Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Communications Security Establishment
May I add a nuance about my colleague's answer and the relationship with social media platforms?
During the election, there were certainly engagements with social media companies to provide context. While it's absolutely true that it's the purview of those social media companies, since they own their platforms, to moderate what goes onto them, we wanted to ensure that there was information about those threats provided to those companies. Our colleagues at the PCO arranged for regular meetings with the platforms, and at one point we did brief them on the types of threats that we see, especially the threats posed by artificial intelligence in the use of social media to propagate misinformation and disinformation and those sorts of things.
The other thing I'll mention is that when it comes to candidates in elections, as I said, we ran a hotline for candidates to raise concerns about cybersecurity. In those particular instances, should a candidate ever say that there's wrong information about them online, we're not going to be able to contact the social media company and we would not be in a position to ask them to take it down, but we can provide the candidate with information and advice on the tools that are available to them and to the party so that they can have this discussion—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
I have to interrupt there. We're well over the time.
We'll turn to Mr. Jackson for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Thank you, Chair.
It's nice to meet all the witnesses. Some of you have been here before, and it's nice to see you again.
I'm picking up where Mr. Cooper left off. I think Canadians are quite concerned about the example of Don Valley North. It was shocking to me, frankly, as a new member of Parliament, and it's shocking to many of the constituents I talked to.
In what other constituencies were foreign interference activities detected during the 2025 election?
Deputy Director, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Mr. Chair, perhaps I'll answer the question this way.
It's important to remind Canadians that the SITE member task force investigates threat activities of foreign states in relation to foreign interference and investigates individual entities that are of concern from the violent extremism perspective. We did say during the tech briefings that in not all instances would we be able to share the detail of where we detected those occurrences—
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Why would that be the case? Why would you not be able to share with Canadians whether their constituency was targeted by a foreign state or not? I don't understand the lack of transparency there.
Deputy Director, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the question.
If you'll permit me to finish, what we were trying to balance in the instances when we did speak publicly—and we did so on two occasions, out of the five appearances we had—were a number of concerns.
First, we wanted to ensure that when we did speak publicly, we were not unduly amplifying the messages of foreign interference actors by contributing to the dialogue. Second, in some instances we needed to ensure that we were ensuring the integrity of national security investigations—
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
I understand that during the election—I really do—but we're well past the election now. The results are finalized and certified. They're in government and we're not, and it's pretty final, so I don't understand now why you cannot share that. Just give us the number of seats.
Associate Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Communications Security Establishment
Mr. Chair, maybe I can pop in and provide a bit of additional context.
We look all the time at threats. While SITE is stood up for enhanced monitoring during an election period or a by-election period, we all work together as colleagues, and our teams all work together as colleagues all the time. If we see any threat, a foreign interference threat, for example, threatening our democratic processes, we would work together to address it under our own mandates at any time.
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Was my seat targeted? Do you think I have the right to know that as a member of Parliament?
Deputy Director, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Mr. Chair, what I can tell the member is that during the course of the election, the security-cleared representatives of all the parties were provided with both unclassified and classified briefs, and we ensured that any information that was reported to the SITE task force was understood during those conversations.
On the question of the post-election impact, as my colleague said and as we have heard in testimony and as our minister, the Minister of Public Safety, has also said, foreign interference itself is a threat that is persistent and pervasive. That was also a conclusion of Commissioner Hogue.
As my colleague Bridget said, as we share necessary information to equip Canadians to be resilient against those threats, we do need to ensure that we do not compromise the methodologies that—
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Okay. I have one more question.
Madam Drouin was here last week and testified at the committee that countermeasures were deployed that disrupted or even neutralized attempts at foreign interference in certain constituencies. Will you tell us where those countermeasures were deployed?
Deputy Director, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Mr. Chair, I appreciate that I will frustrate the member with my answer, but it is important that we, as operational agencies, maintain the ability to protect our methodologies and our investigations in our ongoing efforts to ensure that Canadians are protected from the efforts of hostile states, so I will not, for the reasons of protecting the integrity of those efforts, share the details of where we applied each and every instance of our interventions to protect Canadians during the election period.
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Thank you. That was very clear, actually. I appreciate that answer.
I just find it very concerning that, countermeasures aside, you will not tell Canadians which constituencies were targeted. The Don Valley North example was not shared as widely as perhaps you think it was, as many of us were shocked to learn the details.
If other constituencies are subjected to threats, either during an election period or ongoing, I believe, and I think most of us believe, that Canadians have the right to know which constituencies are being targeted by foreign states. I strongly encourage you folks to consider being more accountable and publicly transparent about sharing the names of those constituencies.
Liberal
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Thanks to all of our witnesses for being here. It's more than once, actually. Your extensive experience is on display here, both in intelligence operations and national security threat assessments. I want to appreciate your service to free and fair elections.
I will start by directing a question to Ms. Lloyd.
You mentioned in your opening statement that during the 2025 general election, the SITE task force provided weekly briefings to the media about foreign interference. What feedback did you receive from those briefings, and what role do Canadian media have in helping to reach the Canadian public?
Deputy Director, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Mr. Chair, in fact, we are very grateful for the media being along with us on that journey and sharing the information verbally, as I said earlier, and pointing regularly and often to the tools that we were publishing and putting before Canadians during the course of the election.
The purpose of doing so was to ensure that Canadians had the tools they needed to navigate the information ecosystem in particular, and we received quite positive feedback, perhaps unusually, from the media in offering those briefings.
I will also say that it was one of the elements for which the security-cleared members of each party commended us, because it allowed a frequent engagement with Canadians and also allowed campaigns on the ground that were supporting individual candidates to understand how things were shifting and to be alerted on issues. It also encouraged reporting, both from Canadians and from members of the campaigns, including volunteers.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Thank you.
Ms. Walshe, you had started an answer before. I want to see if you can expand on it.
What are some of the ways that Canadians, when they're hearing this information—misinformation, disinformation—can learn and educate themselves? We're trying to reach out to Canadians to help educate them. It sounds like you have a number of programs in place.
Associate Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Communications Security Establishment
Mr. Chair, absolutely, we do a lot of work to understand the threats that exist online, what those cyber-threats are that target Canadians and Canadian organizations. One piece of that is looking at the threats that come to our democratic process. Approximately a year ago, we published a report on the threats that AI poses to cybersecurity.
Part of that is really about being transparent and providing a mechanism to let Canadians know what those threats are. The fact that cyber-threat actors are able to automate what they do, do it at scale and do it faster and in a less expensive way means that the threats increase. The fact that we have generative AI that allows somebody to create deepfake images has clear implications for our democratic process and the spreading of misinformation. We publish that information and make it available so that Canadians are informed about their decision-making, but it's not the only piece that we put out there.
As mentioned previously, we have a campaign called Get Cyber Safe, which is used to distribute and disseminate that information on social media. We have resources on misinformation, disinformation, other cyber-threats and things that anyone can implement to make themselves more resilient from a cybersecurity perspective.
We're not the only ones, though. Our colleagues at the Privy Council Office have the democracy tool kit. Our colleagues at CSIS, at the service, produce information about those threats. It's all across the table. The rapid response mechanism puts pieces out, and the RCMP has education campaigns.
It's not something that only we do, but there is an awful lot of work out there to make sure that Canadians are well informed heading in as they're making their choice to vote.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
That's very helpful. Thank you.
I believe it was you, Ms. Lloyd, who mentioned that you have enhanced monitoring during elections but that there is always ongoing work in between at some sort of a reduced capacity. You also mentioned that there have been 12 by-elections that you've overseen.
Can you give us a perspective on how a by-election is handled? It's not a full election, yet it's not off-season. How is that handled?
Deputy Director, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Mr. Chair, since 2023, we have been mandated to stand up for every by-election. A key difference to understand is that during a by-election, we're not in a caretaker period. That means the panel is not stood up to be able to receive the information from the SITE task force. Instead, it is considered in the same tempo and at the same depth by a deputy ministerial committee for intelligence and action. It is that body that then responds to the task force members in terms of the actions they would like us to take on what we've observed.
All of those by-elections are subject to the same transparency as the general election in terms of the fact that we do publish—and you can find them on PCO's website for SITE—the after-action reports for each of those 12 by-elections. They make clear where we saw or didn't see foreign interference.
To the member's point and to Ms. Walshe's comment, there is, for certain threat actors, a baseline of foreign interference threats, for example, that takes place all of the time. While elections are an opportunity to conduct focused foreign interference, threats to democratic societies, including Canada, are a standard operating procedure for certain threat actors.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
Thank you so much.
Because we have a two-hour panel, we will do Madam Normandin for five minutes, Mr. Cooper for five minutes and Madam Brière for five minutes. Then we'll take a five-minute break for the benefit of everyone.
Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for five minutes.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to continue asking questions about disinformation, particularly with respect to social media spreading it. I imagine that newspapers don't spread a lot of disinformation.
Your answers give me the impression that disinformation is the panel of experts' Achilles heel. You talked about cybersecurity and other threats, but I imagine that it's really disinformation that could have the most impact on the outcome of an election.
From what I understand, you don't really have any measures in place to counter disinformation or stop the spread of intentionally biased misinformation.
I'd like your comments on that.
When we were talking about robust measures, Mr. Babou, you mentioned that they might be necessary for cybersecurity incidents, but not for disinformation incidents.
Did I understand correctly?
Executive Director, Rapid Response Mechanism, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Mr. Chair, I thank the member for the question.
I'll provide a little background. We're talking about information manipulation, which is something broader than pure disinformation. It can also be the inauthentic amplification of content that might be truthful.
It's not the committee's or our unit's job to determine what information is true. We're more concerned about the source of the information. If the information is linked to a state actor but that link is not made public, we believe that should be shared with the public. The amplification and virality of this inauthentic content is also something we feel we must communicate to the public.
As for measures to counter this information manipulation, you're absolutely right to say that there's no way in the digital environment to turn off the tap. As Ms. Walshe said earlier, part of the solution is to inform the public so that they can stay well informed and think a little more critically about the information obtained online.
All government agencies have a role to play in this issue, but civil society also has a large part to play. We work with some institutions, and we fund some as well, to get the public to have a more critical eye on the information that's being consumed.
Then there are other measures that can be taken to focus on certain sources of information that are less credible and more critical. I think that's what we did during the election, for example. Take for example the incident where, with intelligence sources and open data sources, we were able to inform the Canadian public that a very popular WeChat account was actually linked to the Chinese government.
When the information is received, it allows the public to exercise judgment. There's no silver bullet solution in and of itself. It's a set of tools that we're trying to make available to Canadians so that they can make more informed choices about the information they consume.
My colleague Ms. Walshe may want to add to that.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
If I may, I would like to add something about this. I have about a minute of speaking time left.
You said it was impossible to turn off the tap, but at the same time, you're trying other methods to make the public understand that certain accounts and certain posts are problematic. However, generally speaking, people who get their news on social media are perhaps less interested in traditional media.
Isn't that a waste of time, and shouldn't we reconsider the possibility of turning off the tap, as you said?