Thank you for that question.
There's a lot that can be done.
First of all, the very first thing I'm going to say, as an academic, is that we need to have an understanding of how this actually works and a proper understanding of the threat that comes from this. There's still this prevalent thinking that if it doesn't explode, if there's no direct, visible blood, it's not dangerous, and that leads to resource allocations. Other security threats—and we have lots of other security threats as well—are prioritized over this, but I believe that, long-term, this is a very serious threat. The first point is to raise understanding in the population and to include leadership. We've made progress there, but it's still not anywhere close to where we need it to be.
The second approach is.... There are two sides. My recommendation is hardening the target. Hardening the target is always, long-term, the best strategy. That is about making people media-literate, enabling people to better understand the difference between legitimate information and mis- and disinformation. There are promising models. We see what states like Finland, Sweden and Denmark are doing. They are very effective at this. We can take from their programs. That's one point.
The other one I mentioned is on the government side. You'll see my recommendations. We need, on the military side, to have updated policy that clearly states what the CAF can do in the space and what it can't do, and gives clear guidelines on what can be done. I also recommend more effective sanctions and implementing the current law we have—for example, going after companies that are enabling the circumventing of the sanctions for accessing Russian media in Canada.
These are some recommendations: hardening the target, on the one hand, but also understanding the threat better and providing resource and training for security services to be more effective in this space.