Public Safety Committee on Dec. 10th, 2024

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

We're going to move in camera.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

We are back.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on September 19, 2024, the committee resumes its study on Russian interference and disinformation campaigns in Canada.

I'd now like to welcome our witnesses today.

Rachel Gilmore is an independent journalist. Pierre Jolicoeur is a professor of political science and dean of the faculty of social sciences and humanities at the Royal Military College of Canada. Finally, we have Pekka Kallioniemi, a researcher with the International Centre for Defence and Security.

Just for the sake of the committee, I know that Ms. Gilmore has a hard stop at 1:30, and I understand that it's very late for Mr. Kallioniemi, so we will try to wrap up this meeting earlier. Thank you so much for appearing.

Now I give the floor to Ms. Gilmore for an opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Rachel Gilmore, Independent Journalist, As an Individual]

Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me.

This is obviously a very important topic, and I have some big feelings about it.

To kick things off, I'm sure you all remember the “freedom convoy”. Well, as part of my coverage at the time, I joined several Telegram channels and groups where organizers and supporters gathered to exchange everything from planning details to fringe conspiracy theories. You might not have realized this, but it was actually just days after the convoy—actually, you guys probably do know this—that Russia invaded Ukraine.

It was a really interesting time to be monitoring all of those Telegram channels, because all of a sudden, the ones that had been posting about the convoy and COVID—groups with tens of thousands of members primed to distrust experts, government, media and institutions—shifted to posting about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, often claiming that Russia's invasion was actually justified because of reasons that the government and the mainstream media won't tell you.

This illustrates something that experts have said time and time again: Russia identifies the areas where we're most prone to polarization and pours gasoline on the fire that we've already built ourselves.

Don't just take my word for it, though. You can take it from Russia. In the documents that the DOJ released in September in the U.S., we saw details from Russia's “Good Old USA” project and its “Guerrilla Media Campaign” in the United States. Those documents show that Russia identified existing sources of polarization to then exploit. The “Campaign Topics” they planned to focus on included stuff like what they called the “Threat of crime coming from people of color and immigrants”, “Risk of job loss for white Americans” and what they called “Privileges for people of color, perverts, and disabled”.

That gives you a sense of the kinds of divisions Russia focused on exacerbating. It has a lot in common with what I would call the “right-wing grifter sphere” and what comes out of there, where people rail against immigration, attack diversity and inclusion, pearl-clutch about anti-white racism and oppose trans rights. Those are the kinds of topics you hear from people like Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Lauren Southern, and those are the same influencers who ended up on the payroll at Tenet Media, which Russia was allegedly funding to spread its talking points. If we accept the premise that Russia never influenced their editorial decisions, as these influencers claimed after the fact, that implies these folks are so good at dividing and polarizing western society that Russia likely saw it as a good investment to just fund them to make more of their organic content—yikes.

When we indulge in divisive, conspiratorial and often hateful rhetoric, we are doing Russia a favour, because a society that doesn't believe in institutions, in science, in journalism, in the validity of experts, in the value of taking care of each other and in the importance of a shared reality is a society where democracy and stability are under threat.

That's a note for the politicians who use this same kind of divisive and conspiratorial rhetoric: Consider what it means that Russia engages in the same tactics when it tries to undermine our democracy. Don't make it easier for them.

I want to touch on one last, slightly boring but super important, topic. When it comes to online disinformation, I want to emphasize the importance of taking action against Google's monopoly on digital ads.

The advertisers don't know where their ads go anymore. They take their ad spend and they give it to a company like Google, which says that it will reach, say, women aged 25 to 35 who want to buy a car, but it's actually very hard for advertisers to know where their ads end up, because Google and a bunch of middlemen place those ads for them. When an industry group tried to track this last year, 3% of the international digital ad spend, which is on track to hit a trillion dollars next year, went to an “unknown delta”. That's billions of dollars.

In the course of my reporting, I've seen ads for the U.S. government mint placed on Iranian websites that are likely sanctioned. I've seen ads for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on a porn website. Do you think those advertisers wanted to fund those websites? Do you think that, if they had the choice, they'd rather fund disinformation websites than actual journalism?

Advertisers can't demand transparency on where all of their ads actually go. They can't demand better from Google, because it's the only game in town. Breaking up Google's monopoly and ensuring advertisers know what they're funding would be one incredibly effective way of ripping a profit motive from several disinformation websites.

With that, I am happy to take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Thank you, Ms. Gilmore.

I now invite Mr. Jolicoeur to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Pierre Jolicoeur, Professor of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Royal Military College of Canada , As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.

It is reassuring to see how seriously the Public Safety and National Security Committee is taking the threat that Russian disinformation and influence operations are posing to Canadians, to our democracy and our society.

The points I am making today are my own and do not represent the position of any organization.

My research has focused on Russia's foreign and security policy for the past 30 years. During the past 10 years, I have also been focusing on the weaponization of information by Russia and other actors who threaten Canada and other western democracies. I look specifically at why Russia is exploiting information and how current operations fit into the larger context of Russian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

As part of this research, I look at the effects of Russian information exploitation on Russia's neighbours as well as generally on democracies and what we can do to defend democracies against information attacks and other attempts to influence and undermine our societies.

I will focus on what the Kremlin is doing when targeting Canada, why it targets Canada, how it targets Canada, how current Russian operations fit into the larger context of Russian long-term goals and what I recommend we do to defend against Russian influence attacks.

What is Russia doing? Russia deliberately and systematically targets Canada and its allies 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the information space. The Kremlin sees itself in a war with the west and believes that—like in a zero-sum game—if the west has problems, Russian society is better off. This is how the Kremling sees things. It's important to note that this is not the position of all Russians; it's the thinking of the Russian president and the Russian political elite, who benefit directly from Vladimir Putin's corrupt authoritarian regime.

Russian interference and disinformation campaigns are not only directed at election cycles but are pervasive and persistent. The Kremlin seeks to leverage and exaggerate societal fault lines, to disrupt our political systems and societies as part of a strategy called “Russian reflexive control”, aiming at changing long-term worldviews and mindsets of citizens. The goal is to affect behavioural change in western countries towards Putin's personal goals.

All Canadian residents are targeted by Russian disinformation and influence operations, not just selected politicians. Targeting of Canadians and Canadian interests happens at home, but also globally and is not only aimed at generating an effect or impact in Canada.

Why is Russia influencing the west? For the Kremlin—like other authoritarian undemocratic regimes such as China—the sheer existence of democracies is a threat to its regime's survival. Countries like Canada show every day that the repression, violence, censorship and corruption we see in authoritarian regimes is not only unnecessary, but that it is harmful and fundamentally not in the interest of citizens. Russian citizens cannot compete with westerners, not in terms of living conditions, economic development, political stability or general happiness of the people. Therefore, the way we live and how much we thrive directly challenges and threatens authoritarian systems as it shows citizens living under authoritarian regimes how much better we live in democracies.

I'm going to move on to the conclusion right away, because I think I'm running out of time.

What can we do? I have five suggestions.

First, information policy needs to be revised across the board in the Canadian government. Second, we can adopt a sanctions framework, similar to that the EU just introduced last month, targeting individuals that support Russian influence and disinformation operations in Canada more effectively and better utilizing existing legislation. Third, we can adopt a DND information operation policy replacing the one from 2018. Fourth, we can focus more on the role of influencers in Russian influence campaigns. Fifth, we can hold Canadian companies accountable that are helping evade current Canadian sanctions.

I'll end there. Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Thank you for your presentation.

I'd like to invite Mr. Kallioniemi to make an opening statement of up to five minutes. Thank you.

[Pekka Kallioniemi, Researcher, International Centre for Defence and Security, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today.

My name is Pekka Kallioniemi. I'm a Finnish expert on social media and disinformation, and in recent years I have mainly focused on Russian online disinformation in a series titled Vatnik Soup.

It's safe to say that during the last 10 years, Russian online influence operations have been the most effective in the world, and the Kremlin has attempted to interfere with elections and referendums around the world.

The latest example is the massive social media campaign that Russia ran before the presidential elections in Romania. An unknown pro-Kremlin, anti-NATO candidate gained over 20% of the total vote during the first round only by campaigning on TikTok. The whole election was eventually annulled due to the massive Russian interference campaign exposed by Romanian intelligence agencies.

In many countries, Russians hire and manipulate people to spread false narratives online, and Canada is not an exception. There are several prominent figures parroting Kremlin viewpoints regarding, for example, Ukraine and Syria. Tenet Media was mentioned previously, but there are also several academics, journalists and other social media personalities who spread Russia's lies online. Some of them are motivated by money and others by ideology or their egos. Some may even have become victims of Russian blackmail, or kompromat.

This is how Russia usually operates. They hide the origin of the message. It's also the reason why their messaging is so effective. They have this ability to make it seem organic and local.

Of course, all this will be—and, to some degree, already is—supercharged with the use of AI. Since February 2022, Russia's main goal with their influence operations has been to stop any kind of military aid to Ukraine. In the long term, they also try to destabilize western societies, undermine trust in democratic institutions and weaken adversaries through division and confusion.

The rationale behind this is that any—

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

I am sorry, but we have to suspend. There is a fire alarm.

[The meeting was adjourned at 12:43 p.m. See Minutes of Proceedings]