Public Safety Committee on Oct. 8th, 2024

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

We've talked a little bit about the specific tactics that are employed by Russia to manipulate western voices.

Do you want to expand on that a little bit?

Do you think these efforts are effective, especially in a country like Canada, where we have some of the highest rates of tertiary education?

I want to ask a follow-up to that as well.

Do you think there's an ethnic component to some of this destabilizing manipulation? Canada obviously has a large proportion of immigrants whose first language is perhaps not English.

Does the level of Russian influence go as deep as reaching into these other minority communities within Canada?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

I would say two things. I think that Russia is in a slightly difficult position in engaging in disinformation operations against Canada. Some of this was pointed out in the CSIS assessment, which I'd encourage members of the committee to read because I think it's a good overview document. Part of the problem is that there is not a lot of sympathy for Russian positions on issues in Canada across the board, particularly in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Also, the Russian diaspora is not a unified entity within Canada. It contains many kind of diverse groups, including groups like the Russian Canadian Democratic Alliance, that are very much in opposition to the Putin regime, so they don't have a big diaspora base to work on and they don't have sympathies they can draw on.

Against that is the fact that the Russians are past masters at disinformation or propaganda operations. They devote a lot of resources to these. They have almost unlimited resources in terms of money, personnel and cyber-capabilities to try to engage in disinformation operations. They just start from a weaker base when it comes to targeting Canada, I would say.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Does Russian manipulation go as deep as to reach ethnic communities within Canada? Obviously, there are quite sizable minority populations within Canada.

The reason I ask is that Pearson airport is in my riding, and my constituency has a high proportion of immigrants. I often have these conversations where some of them seem to be parroting a lot of this disinformation that's coming from Russia. I'm wondering if it has ricocheted off something else to reach them or if they are being directly targeted.

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

I think there are two answers to that question.

One is that some of it is definitely directly targeted, but I think that takes place more in the field of transnational repression, which you've heard a bit about from some of the other witnesses, where there are members of the Russian diaspora who are identified as aggressively anti-Putin or against the Russian illegal invasion of Ukraine. The Russian government would do whatever it could to try to stifle those kinds of criticisms or counter them.

More broadly, their disinformation efforts, I would argue, are a kind of subset of what they're attempting to do in the United States, which is deepen polarization and introduce doubts about the validity and viability of democratic governance. I think that the Canadian playbook for Russian disinformation is essentially a copy on a smaller scale of their playbook directed against the United States.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Gaheer.

Ms. Michaud, you have two and a half minutes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Oksanen.

Not long ago, Mr. Shekhovtsov, the previous witness, shared a post on Twitter. It showed an advertisement or billboard that can be found in several Italian cities. On these billboards, it says that Russia is not our enemy. The image depicts a handshake and contains the colours of both countries, Russia and Italy. On these billboards, people are also encouraged to stop giving money for weapons and to help Ukraine.

According to the testimony we heard today, in Canada, the propaganda or disinformation messages that come from Russia are much more subtle. For example, they say that Ukraine is corrupt, or other such messages.

Since you're in Sweden, I'm curious as to whether this is the kind of advertising you see in other European cities. We talked about France and Germany, which could be particularly targeted.

Is this the kind of advertising that can often be seen in your country? How do governments react to this, and how should they react?

[Patrik Oksanen]

Well, that main aim of what the Russians are doing here is to break the support for Ukraine. Here, they work with different methods in different countries.

You were mentioning Italy. That's another context, another situation and another kind of support for Russia to push that kind of advertisement. That will not work in Sweden. It will not work in the Nordic-Baltic countries.

Instead, you can see narratives like “Ukraine will lose” and that kind of narrative: “time is on Russia's side” and “we could save lives if Ukraine gave territory for peace”. That kind of argument is what you're seeing pro-Russian persons, media outlets and so on pushing in that context, but this differs, of course, in what country you're talking about.

Italy has a long tradition of Russian influence, and we have seen more political parties being more positive towards Russia in Italy than in Sweden. In Sweden, it would be a political disaster to do that.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Okay.

I'll come back to the second part of my question.

How should different governments react? I know that some governments may be more in favour of Ukraine, others in favour of Russia.

Already two years ago, I was in France and I saw quite frequent messages saying that we should support Russia rather than Ukraine.

What role can the government play in all this? I know there's a fine line between what we can do and freedom of expression, but at some point, what kind of action can governments take to counter this?

[Patrik Oksanen]

Thank you, Madame, for reminding me about the second part of the question there.

I think governments should be very clear on why Russia is doing this, on what is at stake, and have that frank and sincere conversation with citizens. We are in a situation right now when the democratic world is in conflict with authoritarian states, especially Russia, but also we have other states like China and so on.

We should be very clear in communicating to citizens what is going on and what is at stake, and then, of course, also look over what kinds of regulations we have within society that we could use without infringing on what we're trying to save and to protect the democracy.

This is a delicate balance. Of course, I will not go into the Canadian debate here, but in general terms, I think we must have leaders in society to be very clear on what's going on.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Oksanen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'm sorry. There's a bit of confusion with the time. Your time was going up, not down.

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

Mr. MacGregor—it's one of those Scottish names—you have two and a half minutes. We'll draw the line there.

Thank you.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Okay. I appreciate it.

Mr. Oksanen, I'd like to turn back to you again. In one of our previous meetings, one of our witnesses was talking about how Canada needs to enact a “national digital resilience strategy”, so there are certainly some sectors of Canadian society that are recognizing the scope of the challenges before us.

With respect to the psychological defence agency, I think Professor Wark said that it does sound a bit Orwellian, and certainly we might face a bit of criticism from certain sectors of society.

I'm curious. Since this agency was created in Sweden, what has been the public's reaction to it? Is there a general consensus that this is a tool that is needed for this moment in time? Over the two years of its existence, has there been any shift in public opinion on that agency's role in Swedish society and its necessity to counteract Russian threats?

[Patrik Oksanen]

Let me first give some historical background. This agency might be new now, but it is an old agency that was scrapped during the eternal peacetime.

The history of the Psychological Defence Agency and its predecessor goes back to the early 1950s, when the Cold War was coming back again. Sweden drew on the conclusions and the experiences we had during World War II, when we had radio propaganda from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union into our society and so on. This has a long tradition.

It is also very intertwined with the Swedish total defence concept, where we communicate with our citizens that we will never surrender if we get into war. We started those communications back in 1943. Actually, today the next version of this brochure will be distributed to everyone in the population. It's if war comes or if the crisis comes. The brochure is some 30 pages.

Over these two years, I wouldn't say the perception has changed of the agency. It was installed with broad political support. I would say it's accepted, but it's trying to find its role within Swedish society and the governance system. Of course, a new agency finding a relationship with other agencies takes some time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today and for your testimony. It's very helpful.

I have a couple of items of committee business before we carry on. The clerk distributed this morning two draft budgets, one in the amount of $20,250 for the study on Russian interference and disinformation campaigns in Canada, and one in the amount of $1,500 for the study of the growing problem of car thefts in Canada.

Is it the will of the committee to adopt these budgets?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I would also like to announce that the next version of the auto theft study will be ready probably in the next day. It will be distributed to the committee as soon as it's available.

Thank you, all.

We are adjourned.