National Defence committee  Thank you. That's a very good question. I don't think it's just our forces. I think there needs to be broader awareness in general for all Canadians so that they can recognize information operations and defend themselves against them. In the context of our forces, again, I think

National Defence committee  I think that Canada had, and all of our allies had, a huge wake-up call on February 24 of last year. I think that most of us, including Canada, rapidly developed our capabilities to try to address this threat. I think now, finally, our government and certainly our forces and thos

National Defence committee  I don't have an assessment of how well defended our energy industry is. I think that each company probably has its own protocols. I think we would be wise as a nation to try to create some sort of standards for cybersecurity for various different industries and such so that the

National Defence committee  We can always do more. The threat is always evolving, and we need to make sure that we're keeping up with it. My understanding is that the capabilities of CSE are growing, but we need to make sure that in those specific organizations that control the various different parts of th

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. I think CAF intelligence command is doing a great job of posting and debunking various different Russian disinformation narratives right now. In terms of public affairs, that capability certainly is there. However, when it comes to our forces tactical

National Defence committee  Well, absolutely. I mean, disinformation is often a form of digital communication. It's used by our adversaries, as I mentioned earlier, to destabilize our democracy, to turn each of us one against another. They do this using various different platforms of social media. I menti

National Defence committee  There have been clear instances in which provincial parliamentarians in Ontario fell victim to foreign information operations during the pandemic. There was an Ontario MPP who supported anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown views, which is perfectly normal in Canada, but the Russian

National Defence committee  —so yes, there are definitely parliamentarians who've been—

National Defence committee  Again, that's a very good question. Having read some of the information about those capabilities when they were being developed, I know the Canadian Armed Forces take information and psychological warfare very seriously. As I mentioned earlier, Vladimir Putin's partner, Alina Ka

National Defence committee  I find that any future technologies are a deep concern, especially when it comes to the information realm. AI is developing very quickly. The speed with which our foreign adversaries can put out information and disinformation is going to be quite alarming. I'm not sure we're prep

National Defence committee  Thank you for that question—

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Foreign information operations—cyber-operations—in that context were absolutely targeting Canada during the pandemic. We had anticipated this already in 2020, when the pandemic was just starting. Our allies in the EU at the eastern StratCom also anticipated

National Defence committee  There are lots of countries that are doing a great job in this area. These are frontline countries—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Taiwan is doing an exceptional job in combatting Chinese disinformation. Finland and Sweden as well have adopted early childhood education programs into

National Defence committee  In terms of the information realm, we know that China has targeted Canada with various different nefarious activities to try to undermine our democracy during the past three elections. During the last election, my organization, DisinfoWatch, detected Chinese state actors trying

National Defence committee  No, unfortunately I don't have data on which candidates received funding and which received support from the Chinese government.