Public Safety Committee on Oct. 8th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We're going to wrap up this panel.

Thank you, witnesses, for your testimony and for appearing today. Your information is most helpful.

That concludes this portion of the meeting. We will suspend for a few minutes to change panels.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We are short one witness, at this point. Hopefully, that witness arrives online in the interim. We will pause briefly and test their audio.

I would like to welcome our witness for the second hour.

From the Centre for International Governance Innovation, we have Mr. Wesley Wark, senior fellow.

Thank you for joining us today.

I'll now invite Mr. Wark to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

Please go ahead, sir.

[Dr. Wesley Wark, Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm grateful to appear before the committee on this important study.

There are two concerning aspects of Russian disinformation targeting Canada. One is real. It's the effort to manipulate Canadian attitudes towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The other is what I call a “potentiality”. It's the use of Russian intelligence and cyber-capabilities, which are significant, to interfere in Canadian elections and democratic processes in the future. These elements were captured in the CSIS intelligence assessment of May 2023, which was recently released to PIFI.

The conclusion to the CSIS assessment reads:

While the Russian diaspora and its organizations may not have a broad impact on Canadian society, their influence becomes more apparent when consolidated with other organizations and their online presence, pro-Russian proxies or agents of influence, and [the Russian Federation's] global disinformation efforts.

There is also, of course, the blowback potential of Russian disinformation operations targeting other countries, especially the United States.

The question I want to address concerns Canadian governmental capabilities to detect and counter Russian-directed online information operations.

The first is on detection. This involves attack attributions back to a Russian state or proxy source, the tracing of methodologies of attack—especially technical ones—and an understanding of intended targets. Canadian capabilities for detection of malicious online information operations are nascent and were created in an evolving and reactive way. This is the history of the rapid response mechanism, or RRM Canada, in a nutshell.

I'll very briefly go over that history. The RRM, as I'll call it, was created following the 2018 G7 meeting in order to perform a coordination function that can respond to a variety of shared threats to democracy. It was only after the Russian invasion of Ukraine that the Prime Minister announced, in August 2022, the establishment of a dedicated unit in RRM Canada at Global Affairs to address Russian and other state-sponsored disinformation. In essence, RRM Canada's disinformation unit is brand spanking new. Its resources are minuscule and its capacity to engage with a range of expert, private sector media-monitoring and open-source intelligence organizations is very limited. It was an innovative idea and has potential, but its “engine room”, as I call it, is far too small, and its fit as a Global Affairs Canada unit within the broader security and intelligence community is very problematic. Our detection side is weak.

What about countering? There are various tools. I'll list them: engaging with foreign state actors directly; working with allies, which is an important one; naming-and-shaming campaigns, as they're sometimes called; helping to strengthen the resilience of targeted communities, not least by giving them the means to be the eyes and ears against disinformation; and providing broader public education through published threat assessments from organizations like CSIS and CSE. At the pointy end, there are two things. One is using CSE powers to what could be called, colloquially, “hack back”. This is, in essence, using powers provided to CSE in 2019 for offensive cyber-operations. The other is criminal sanctions, which should be boosted by some of the provisions in Bill C-70. No one tool will suffice. All are necessary.

What about the foreign influence transparency registry, newly established through Bill C-70? Here I would urge the committee to have realistic expectations. FITR—the acronym—will mostly be a registry for good guys. It won't stop covert bad actors, but it might have a deterrent effect on grey-zone activities and open up a criminal sanctions path, such as the one utilized in the recent United States Department of Justice indictment against two Russia Today actors.

What do we need? First, I would argue that we need upgrades to RRM Canada's capacity and changes to its placement in government. One suggestion would be to move it to Public Safety's office for countering foreign interference. It's in the wrong place at Global Affairs.

We also need—and this is critical to any understanding of foreign malign influence operations—a much stronger open-source intelligence capability in the Canadian S and I community.

There is some capability. The function is far too widely distributed within the S and I community and subject to too many diverse mandates and sets of authorities. We saw some of this at work with regard to the government's efforts to respond to the freedom convoy protests. A central OSINT—open source intelligence—agency with a clear mandate is needed.

Finally, I would encourage the committee to give some serious thought to creating an equivalent of Sweden's Psychological Defence Agency, which was established by Sweden in January 2022. This agency combines an operations role in detecting and countering foreign malign influence operations, especially over social media, with a public role to strengthen societal resilience. A psychological defence agency may sound a little Orwellian, but that's the world we live in.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Our other witness, Mr. Oksanen, is now able to join us online. We will pause briefly and do an audio check.

We are now joined by Mr. Patrik Oksanen, who is appearing as an individual. Mr. Oksanen is a resident senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum, and he is joining us, of course, by video conference.

Mr. Oksanen, would you please go ahead with your opening statement of up to five minutes?

[Patrik Oksanen, Resident Senior Fellow, Stockholm Free World Forum, As an Individual]

Thank you, sir and dear madams and sirs. I am very honoured to be invited to the committee to give a statement on Russian influence in allied countries.

I will focus my time on transnational repression, targeting people from Nordic countries who are in EU and NATO countries. These are people who have been exposing Russian influence work. Among them are journalists, researchers and civil servants.

My personal experience started in 2015, when I wrote about Russian information warfare as an opinion writer for a green, liberal, centrist, regional Swedish newspaper. Since then, I have received phone calls with demands that I stop writing because I am about to cause a nuclear war. I have regularly been accused of being a racist, mentally sick and a very despicable person, and I have received several death threats online. I have been physically intimidated in a public place by the pro-Russian, Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement. By the way, it is classified in the U.S. as a terror group.

I have been smeared and wrongly accused of being a convicted pedophile in a Facebook group very close to the Russian embassy in Sweden. It was a campaign in which an alternative media editor-in-chief took part. He was prohibited from entering the Swedish parliament due to contacts with Russian intelligence. He repeated it and gave it a larger reach to the extent that I have also been harassed in person about this accusation outside my part-time workplace, the Swedish Defence University in Stockholm. That was by a student at the university who has a background in the alternative right movement.

These are just some brief examples of what has happened over the last decade, and is still happening. Of course, they have had consequences for me and my family, as we now live with our addresses and public registers protected in Sweden.

However, here is the clue. I am not the story. I am here as just an example of the story. The story is how Russia tries to scare those who expose Kremlin operations to the public.

If we widen the scope, here are some more things that we know have happened to Nordic citizens in EU and NATO countries. These are citizens who work as journalists, experts or public servants.

We have cases of home visits. People leave traces in your home, like an unflushed number two in the toilet, so you can see that someone has been there. Feel the stress and insecurity of what that means. Imagine that happening in your home.

There have been cyber-attacks against individuals, infiltration of workplaces with an insider giving Russian operatives data on a person's travel and whereabouts, nameless demonstrations and mass reporting to media or researcher ethics boards targeting an individual person, and digital and physical harassment up to the level of the demonstration of the capability to kill someone, such as a drive-by shooting with a water gun in a central European capital.

All these methods have resulted in self-censorship and a delayed understanding of the threat. One public example is Swedish political scientists not daring to sign a public debate article in a Swedish paper in support of one of their targeted colleagues because they were afraid that they would receive similar treatment.

The aim of these methods is to paralyze or fragment a hostile person. This is how the East German Stasi defined these methods back in the 1980s. They have real, long-term effects on the targets, like stress-related diseases, mental strain and a lack of understanding from their surroundings, like workplaces and the public sphere.

It has been a long time since Russia threw out the rule book, and we are now heading to a more critical situation in relation to Russia. In the year ahead and the years to come, Russia will deploy any means below article 5 to frighten and split our societies so that Russia can achieve its imperial goals. These are threats to peace, stability and national security, both in the Nordic countries and in Canada.

Thank you for listening. I am happy to take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, sir, for your statement.

The clerk has asked me to remind you that, should you need translation services, if you look on your Zoom window, there's a button on the bottom somewhere near the centre that allows you to choose between English, French or original feeds. Please advise us if you have any difficulties.

We will start our questioning now with Mr. Lloyd.

Mr. Lloyd, go ahead, please, for six minutes.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. It is a very informative panel.

Mr. Wark, concerning any foreign interference campaign, whether it be from China, Iran, Russia or any other hostile foreign state actor, is it more effective for them to basically create false campaigns out of nowhere, or do they generally latch on to existing societal issues to amplify their campaigns?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Thank you, Mr. Lloyd. It's an excellent question.

The general view that emerges from studies of propaganda offensives over decades if not centuries is that they are typically most effective when they are able to latch on to existing views, even if they're minority views, and try to amplify them, find new audiences for them and spread them.

I think it's relatively rare that a disinformation operation from a foreign authoritarian state would try to create some brand new narrative. They depend for their success on latching on to what they understand to be societal dynamics in foreign states. I would say, finally, that this is potentially a weakness for authoritarian foreign states, because it requires a fairly sophisticated understanding of the state that they're targeting.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

My question leads into concerns that Canadians have right now regarding inflation, housing and crime. These aren't issues that are being made up by foreign state powers. They might be being amplified by them, but they aren't issues that are being made up by foreign powers. These are real issues that Canadians are facing. Wouldn't you agree?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Absolutely, and, of course, disinformation campaigns love to latch on to various kinds of conspiracy theories that might link to some of those significant societal issues.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you for that.

At our previous panel last Tuesday, I was very concerned because the witnesses were talking about the high level of infiltration of Canada's media and academics. I learned about the existence of a group called the Valdai Club.

Can you comment on the role of Russian misinformation and disinformation campaigns on influencers in academia and media?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

I may be the wrong person to give you an absolutely objective view of this, coming out of that academic community, but I would say that the impact within the academic world is probably pretty limited. If you take the example of the Valdai Club, I cannot imagine there are many Canadian academics who would fully subscribe to their activities in the present day. The Valdai Club has evolved over time. It is certainly something much more sinister and propaganda oriented than it was when it was first established.

I don't think there is large traction in the academic community. I also doubt that it's really a significant target for Russian disinformation operations.

CSIS's intelligence assessment is interesting in that regard, because it really is suggesting that what Russia would like to be able to do, as a foreign state actor in disinformation, is latch on to a Russian diaspora in Canada and try to use elements of that diaspora to spread the message further, but there are significant limitations in their ability to do that.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

That is interesting.

You talked about the weaknesses of the government's actions. You're talking about the minuscule investment at Global Affairs Canada. Can you elaborate further on that? Why do you believe that there's been such a minuscule investment, and what do you think needs to be done in order to deter this Russian misinformation and other foreign actors?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

That is an excellent question, and probably government officials are better placed to explain how this attention has evolved.

I'm confident in my appraisal that it is minusculely resourced at RRM Canada. The best available figures are that there are between six and eight officials assigned to that unit of Global Affairs. There are also, in addition to the human talent question, the sophisticated technological capacities that you need to be able to sift through an immense universe of social media and other Internet activity to come up with indications of disinformation campaigns.

This is why the general understanding is that no government, no matter how well it might resource a unit like RRM Canada, is able to do that on its own. It has to be able to engage in extensive partnerships with established social media monitoring companies, with established private sector, open-source intelligence organizations. Creating those partnerships is something that, frankly, the Canadian government is very bad at doing.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Based on the comments you just made about the minuscule investment, do you think this government is not taking this issue as seriously as it should be?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

I think they have come to take it seriously, partly under pressure of the events. I think attitudes shifted with regard to the seriousness of Russian disinformation after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, although Russia has been a problematic actor in international affairs for a long time.

Similarly, I think attitudes profoundly shifted with regard to understanding China's engagement with the world in the context of the two Michaels case.

There have been shifts, but they have been recent ones, and perhaps delayed.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Would you say our current government was taken by surprise by this development?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Lloyd.

The witness can answer quickly.

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Did it take the government by surprise? Yes, I think that's fair to say. The scale of both Russian and Chinese aggressive operations targeting democracies in the West, not just Canada, using a range of tools, not least espionage and cyber-attack tools, and the extent of that aggression did certainly take the Canadian government by surprise.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We go now to Mr. Erskine-Smith for six minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

Professor Wark, it's good to see you again.

I want to pick up on the thread by Mr. Lloyd regarding disinformation and propaganda taking issues that already exist and amplifying them to sow distrust and social disorder.

If you look at the Tenet Media case as an example, there are stories focused on Canada, like “Inflation In Canada Is Insane”. Okay, that sounds like it could have come from any quarter in a more conservative network, but then they have “Canada Has Fallen”. “Fallen”, “broken”—we've heard that refrain before. Then there is “Canada is Becoming A COMMUNIST HELLHOLE” and “The Great Replacement: Can we finally talk about it?”

There's a pattern where it might start with something that is within the realm of ordinary discourse, and we get to a place that is incredibly sinister. Can you speak to that element of propaganda, specifically Russian propaganda in this case, but propaganda overall?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

I think the potential is clearly there. We would need to consider it in a proportional sense in terms of real impacts in Canada and real understandings, again, on the part of foreign states devising these campaigns about the nature of the society that they're trying to alter perceptions within. I think those are two great limitations.

However, just for example, with regard to what we know of Tenet Media's operations, one of its key influencers, who it hired and spent a lot of money on, was a figure who turned up with attached allegedly heroic significance during the “freedom convoy” protests and the occupation in Ottawa. That may be a small indication of some of the dangers that can attach to this.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Let's stay with that, Mr. Wark, because Mr. Scott, who was just here, suggested that the accounts that were subsidized by Tenet Media ultimately accrued 16 million followers and had that initial reach, but then in Tenet Media channels, in one year, just on Twitter alone, they had 20 billion impressions and an additional 1.1 billion video views on other platforms like YouTube and Rumble.

In the words of Mr. Scott, and he's right, that's absolutely extraordinary value for $10 million.

You mentioned the “freedom convoy”, though. There's a clear case where there was a destabilizing conversation in our debate, certainly, and yes, some Conservatives were tripping over themselves to deliver coffee and donuts, but the fact of the matter is there were many far-right accounts in the convoy crowd who were retweeting and amplifying RT content—Russian content. What do you make of that?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

This is how social media campaigns can attempt to be effective. For many of us who would not spend time on Tenet Media channels, it is a head shaker the extent to which they are able to spread their message through this network.

I would note, and it's a component of the indictment, as you probably know, that Tenet Media was not able to show the commercial value to justify the Russian investment in it. I think there is an important difference to be—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm sorry to cut you off, Mr. Wark, but you mentioned the indictment, and I want to get to that. I only have a minute and a half left.

Mr. Scott was talking about solutions, and I want to get there. When it comes to solutions, obviously, and when it comes to Canadians amplifying content in good faith, as much as it might be misguided, or in the case of Russians amplifying homegrown Canadian content, the path to enforcement isn't clear to me.

Free speech does matter, and we have to protect free speech. In that specific indictment, you have Founder-1 and Founder-2, and we clearly know that Russians are funding their operation here. I don't know about the actual producers of the content. Maybe they don't know, right? They say they don't know. However, Founder-1 and Founder-2 knew what was going on, based on the information in that indictment.

Is the law clear enough to ensure there's going to be action against Founder-1 and Founder-2? They're not charged yet, but is the law clear enough that there's a path for that?