Front Burner - Is Canada ready for Russian election meddling?

Episode Date: November 28, 2018

There's a lot of evidence to suggest that social media accounts tied to the Kremlin tried to meddle in the 2016 US presidential election, the Brexit vote, the last French election, and several elections across Europe. Turns out, they've been active in Canada too. Journalist Justin Ling tells us how Russian accounts have tried to spread misinformation and propaganda here, and how the Canadian government is responding, with the election one year away.

Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This Is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm JB Poisson. So at this point, we have a lot of evidence the Russian government has been messing in other people's elections.

Of course, there was the 2016 U.S. presidential race. Top U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered. The indictment charges 12 Russian military officers by name. The defendants used a network of computers around the world. Russian meddling was a central theme in an unprecedented fake news inquiry that happened in London just yesterday. You can confirm that Facebook as a company knew about this Russian activity in terms of ad buying.

No, no, and again, I think there were two different pieces here. Parliamentarians from nine countries, including Canada, were present. Because it's not just the US. There was the French election, the Brexit referendum, and quite a few other races in Europe. There's even been signs that accounts linked to Russia have been active here in Canada. Today on FrontBurner, could Russia hack a Canadian election?

And are we ready for that? There is processes in place to turn a hacking campaign into a disinformation campaign. You know, there is a very well-oiled machine at play here. And I think if we're ignorant to that, then we're going to get into a lot of trouble. Hi, my name is Justin Ling. I'm a freelance journalist in Toronto, and I just wrote a story for The Walrus about the potential for Russian meddling in Canada. I'd like to start this conversation in January 2017.

You get a message on Twitter, and it's from the press secretary of the Russian embassy in Ottawa. It's a story about Chrystia Freeland's grandfather, a very unflattering story about her family history. Can you tell me about that message? So the message actually came from the official Russian embassy Twitter account. This has been happening for a while. I've actually become somewhat friends with the guy who I know runs the account. His name is Kirill Kalinin. And we'd go for beers occasionally and just chat. I'm fascinated by Ukrainian-Russian politics. So we would just sit and kind of shoot the breeze over a beer. He definitely had a bit of a penchant for selling stories that I knew to be untrue. You know, there was one circumstance where

we're sitting around and he's telling me how during the Euromaidan protests in Kiev a couple of years ago. He goes, you know, the sniper that killed a number of people. I go, yeah, yeah, I know. I know what you're talking about. He goes, well, that was actually one of the protesters. It was, they made it look like it was government forces, but it was actually one of the protesters. And I said, I know that's not true. I know for a fact that that is a line that's been used by a number of Russian state broadcasters

to discredit the protesters. Ukraine's new leaders pump the blame solely on former President Yanukovych's security forces. RT has cut a lonely figure in challenging that line. I knew that was nonsense. So in the purest sense, I knew that he was spreading fake news from the very beginning.

Nevertheless, really nice guy. So he starts sending me these messages saying, you know, take a look at this, take a look at this. And it's a pretty complex set of research. You know, there's a link to some archives in LA. There's a link to some archives in Alberta. There's, you know, I think Wikipedia page, something else. And all of it together There's a link to some archives in LA, there's a link to some archives in Alberta, there's a Wikipedia page, something else. And all of it together is about a guy named Michael

Chomiak. Michael Chomiak was the editor-in-chief of a Ukrainian nationalist newspaper around the outset of World War II. He stayed on as editor-in-chief after the paper was effectively co-opted and run by the Nazi regime. Now, the implication of all this was Michael Chomiak worked in collaboration with the Nazis. Michael Chomiak is Chrystia Freeland's grandfather. Now, we had a bit of a back and forth on this, and I said, you know, I don't think this is a story. Even if it's true, I don't see how you can hold Chrystia Freeland accountable for whatever her grandfather did. And the reality is, the whole situation was quite complicated. You can certainly hold him at fault for staying on at

that newspaper, but history is very complex and messy is the reality of it. And she hasn't necessarily been secretive about this. No, she never lied to us. She actually co-wrote a paper about her grandfather, you know, that kind of tried to deal with that complex history. She said to me, wouldn't it be interesting if somebody asked her about this at a press conference? And I said, maybe, but it's not going to be me. So after you get that Twitter exchange with this official at the Russian embassy, and you decide that this isn't a story for you, like it just doesn't meet the bar, I'm going to guess, of public interest. Right.

What happens to that story? In very short order, it pops up online. So there's a number of outlets online that start publishing pretty extraordinary pieces about Chrystia Freeland calling her family Nazi apologists, Nazi collaborators, saying that she tried to hide her family history and all this. And they're pretty extraordinary tales. And a lot of them directly link her grandfather to her current policies regarding Ukraine. So suggesting that she is sympathetic or in collaboration with far right militias and groups in Ukraine, which is wildly

just untrue. It's just no basis for saying that. But it became pretty clear at that point, you know, that was the goal from the beginning was to try to sully her reputation. But it became pretty clear at that point, you know, that was the goal from the beginning was to try to sully her reputation. But the fact is, there was an attempt to weaponize the information by the Russian embassy. And when these stories are popping up online, where are they popping up? Are they popping up in the Globe and Mail or on CTV? They're popping up in some pretty shady websites. One of them is run by a guy who has worked in Moscow for a number of years, who's I think originally American, aggressively

pro-Kremlin point of view. There's other outlets that are just known for peddling conspiracy theories and innuendo about everything from chemtrails to weather manipulation to 9-11 conspiracy theories. So it kind of festers and promulgates online,

but it doesn't quite break through the ice and it doesn't quite get to any sort of public consciousness until finally Bob Fyfe of the Globe and Mail asks Chrystia Freeland about the story as it's kind of bouncing around online. He doesn't do it quite like the Russian embassy had wanted him to, of course. Recently, there has been a series of articles about you and your maternal grandparents making accusations that he was a Nazi collaborator in pro-Russian websites.

I'd like to get your view on, do you see this as a disinformation campaign by the Russians to try to smear you and discredit you? Which is, you know, a fair question. I think that it is also public knowledge that there have been efforts, as U.S. intelligence forces have said, by Russia to destabilize the U.S. political system. I think that Canadians and indeed other Western countries should be prepared for similar efforts to be directed at us. After he asked that question, that story was absolutely everywhere. In the end, I can only imagine that Kirill in the Russian embassy was sitting there laughing to himself because, you know, it didn't quite get there, I think, in the way that he would have hoped. But the story basically had its desired effect.

There was a conversation had about Kristina Freeland, whether or not her grandfather was a de facto Nazi or not. And a lot of those conspiracy theories about her being sympathetic to anti-Semitic or far-right or extremist groups in Ukraine started happening. Maybe not at a very high level, maybe not in the Globe and Mail, but there was a lot of websites and there was a lot of discussion boards and Twitter accounts and Facebook groups and you name it, which started talking about Chrystia Freeland as champion of neo-Nazi extremism in Ukraine,

which is, again, completely baseless. There's no evidence for this. I've seen stories online that suggest she's approved sales of automatic weapons to these groups or that she's authorized training for these groups. There is no evidence of that. If anything, the evidence we have is that they've deliberately excluded these groups. They've deliberately made sure that far-right extremists do not get any funding or training from the Canadian government. Nevertheless, this idea has still managed to manifest itself online. And so this starts with a very small group of websites.

Then it makes its way into mainstream media. And then it gets picked up by this other constellation or network of websites, as you just explained. And I started seeing this back and forth happening in the media between op-eds and letters to the editor and pundits going back and forth saying, well, you know, this is a perfectly fine thing to discuss. You know, maybe we should have a conversation about whether or not her family's history is up for debate or not, which to some degree, I suppose, is fine. But we also have to recognize where it came from. We can't just cover our ears and pretend like Russia had nothing to do with this.

Can we talk about some of the reasons why the Russians might want to target Chrystia Freeland? You know, the reality is before Chrystia Freeland was Foreign Affairs Minister, when Stéphane Dion spent basically his year as Foreign Affairs Minister, the Trudeau government was pursuing a policy of basically rebuilding diplomatic ties with Russia. Canada must stop being essentially the only one practicing an empty chair policy with Russia. Because by doing so, we are only punishing ourselves. Now, we have some indication that within government, there was quite a lot of chafing. But what did happen is that an effort to pass something called the Magnitsky Act was stalled and frustrated under Stéphane Dion. Now, the Magnitsky Act would allow governments, the Canadian government specifically, to sanction

foreign officials that it considers corrupt, or in some ways kind of doing things that are contrary to basic human rights protections. So when Stéphane Dion was kind of unceremoniously pushed out of the job by the prime minister, which is really the only way to describe it, he was given a foreign posting and kind of told, your time in government is up. Did you fire the former leader of the Liberal Party, sir? I have offered him a very important senior position that is something that is going to be key for me. That bill became law, you know, pretty quickly thereafter. You know, it was no mystery that Chrystia Freeland was, A, going to pass the Magnitsky Act

and potentially cost Vladimir Putin and a number of corrupt officials millions of dollars by freezing their assets in Canada and elsewhere. But also it was well known that Chrystia Freeland is sympathetic to the more liberal and nationalist factions inside Ukraine, the factions that want to basically lean towards the European Union and collaborate more and closely with NATO. And that is exactly contrary to Vladimir Putin's objectives in the region. What does it mean, Chrystia, that European leaders are now turning on Putin? It means that they have seen the light. It's really good. So, you know, it's not an exaggeration to say that Christia Freeland's appointment as foreign affairs minister was a disaster for Russia and for Russia's policies towards engaging with Canada and trying to

isolate Ukraine from NATO. Let me be very clear. Canada strongly condemns Russian aggression towards Ukraine in the Kerch Strait and we call on Russia to immediately release the captured Ukrainian crew and vessels. Yesterday... I think when people think about Russian disinformation or Russian smear

campaigns, they'll immediately think about the 2016 presidential election in the United States. Can we talk about how much or what else might be happening here in Canada? Yeah. I mean, you know, the other really dangerous thing about Russia is that they're really willing to use a diversity of tactics. That ranges from, you know, hacking campaigns to media campaigns to whisper campaigns. While we don't have a lot of evidence that Russia is trying to hack, say, the prime minister's emails, there were indictments passed down in the US just recently over a Russian hacking campaign targeting WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is headquartered in Montreal. They got into Canadians' email systems to obtain their internal emails supposedly to

expose a conspiracy amongst the West to disqualify Russian athletes for doping. I mean, the reality is Russian athletes were doping, but Russia was hoping to build a case that it was all a conspiracy and they faked the test and all this. To, again, muddy the waters. A hundred percent. And just a couple of hours after those emails were leaked by a group called Fancy Bear, which we believe is the same group

that hacked the DNC's emails, just a couple of hours after that went online, I got a message from the Russian embassy Twitter account saying, ooh, take a look at this. You know, the reality is

there is processes in place to spread this misinformation and to turn a hacking campaign into a disinformation campaign to a local campaign. You know, there is a very well-oiled machine at play here. And I think if we're ignorant to that, then we're going to get into a lot of trouble. Justin, you know, we have an election coming up. There's a worry that fake accounts will try to inflame tensions around certain issues that cause division in Canada. Is there something you think accounts linked to the Kremlin will do in the next Canadian election?

So if they see a local debate going on about, let's say, the Trans Mountain Pipeline or Keystone XL, there's a very good chance they're going to spend a bit of money to see if they can try to exacerbate that issue. And you saw exactly that. The Canadian press obtained tweets identified by Twitter as being paid for and orchestrated by basically the Internet Research Agency, which is kind of the name for the group that does a lot of the trolling that seems to be at the behest of the Kremlin. Even if Russia could encourage lower investment in the oil sands, that's a huge victory. That costs Canadians money. That costs the Canadian government money. It could benefit or leverage Russian oil exports into Europe and elsewhere or into China. There's always a whole bunch of issues at play here. And I think if we think about this purely, and I think some people do think about this purely in the context of,

oh, well, Russia likes right-wing candidates, and that's why they're supporting them. The reality is it's not that simple. I mean, the reality is Russia will benefit any sort of political figure, any sort of political movement, or oppose any sort of political movement if they think it could ultimately either, A, help Russian interests, or B, hurt interests that they see as competing with Russia. A, help Russian interests, or B, hurt interests that they see as competing with Russia. You know, there is an outlet that calls itself a think tank based in Montreal that shares wholesale Russian propaganda, basically copy and pasted from Russian propaganda sites that we know are registered in Russia. Up until very recently, if you search for certain news stories, that so-called think tank would be the first or the second or third result. You could be searching for totally normal news stories about Canada and elsewhere. This outlet would pop up looking very authoritative and real.

It looks like it belongs to a university that is basically just spreading Russian propaganda. When I asked Google about it, they basically said, meh, whatever. We'll think about delisting them, but not right now. That's not good. We need to have a conversation about these websites or else we can't expect people to read them critically. At the same time, we also have to be careful not to see Russia behind every rock and behind every tree. Some things are just bad and Russia has nothing to do with them. So, you know, it is important that you base this on what evidence we can actually discern as being tied to Russia. You know, we need to make sure that the IP address for the Twitter account that sent that tweet actually does correspond with a list of IP addresses that are used by the

Internet Research Agency and things along those lines. If you just start pointing at every Twitter account or every Facebook ad you don't like and saying that's Russia, well, you know, at that point, we're going to look conspiratorial ourselves. So what is the Canadian government doing to get ready for possible interference in the next election? We haven't heard the government talk about passing new regulations for Facebook and Twitter and other outlets. Which does seem to be the nexus of where all of this is spreading. A hundred percent. You know, I actually was just on this ad transparency tool that Facebook has.

It's a page where you can look up ads that are running in your country or area. You can look at who's paying for them, how much money, what currency they're using, all this. We don't have this in Canada. Facebook has decided not to launch it in Canada yet. Therefore, we don't have it. And therefore, we cannot tell in many cases who's paying for these ads or how they're paying for them. That's bad. We need to get serious with these companies. The government seems more interested

in befriending Mark Zuckerberg than it does withholding him to account for running a platform that has played host to a remarkable amount of propaganda, not just from the Russians, but from other groups and countries as well. The government unveiled legislation that claimed to tackle the issue of foreign financing in the Canadian election. They banned foreign money from being used by political parties, but they didn't ban foreign money from being used by third parties. The government has talked a good game about empowering the communication security establishment, basically our signals intelligence and cyber defense agency, to help build political parties

and Elections Canada get ready for the next campaign. We are providing Shared Services Canada, the communications security establishment, and the Canada Revenue Agency with $250 million over the coming five years to bolster their cyber defenses. At the same time, the Minister of Democratic Institutions is coordinating a broad effort to protect our political system from foreign interference. Best we can tell, the political parties have not really taken them up on that offer.

You know, we need to talk about preventative measures here, not reactive ones, not criminal code prohibitions. We need to talk about actually preparing ourselves for the possibility that this could happen. Just to sort of push back on some of what you've said, I mean, CISA certainly does seem aware that this is a problem. There is a report on disinformation in the internet,

and here's what they said. Disinformation poisons public debate and is a threat to democracy. Raised public awareness is needed to distinguish the real from the false. There are many ways for governments and organizations to counter the threat, but there's no guarantee that even active counter campaigns can defeat the high volume of malicious communications. So what's your takeaway from that?

It's an interesting quote. The problem is, I think that report was an interesting first step, but they didn't do much afterwards. I had a really good conversation with the chief of defense staff, Jonathan Vance, kind of about some of these disinformation efforts. I kind of said, don't you think a good first step would be attribution? You know, if Russia does something that targets Canada or Canadian officials or the government, don't you think it'd be a good first step to kind of step out and say, here's what they tried to do, just so everyone's aware, just so there's no confusion. And this is something the Americans have found out has been extremely effective.

After the 2016 election, the FBI and the CIA and some others in the intelligence community got together and started publishing reports, very detailed technical reports about how the hacks happened and how they're so confident that Russia would behind it. Those reports did an awful lot to build public trust that this was not just finger pointing and, you know, sort of Cold War era intrigue. This did a lot to say, here's our proof of how this happened. And we're not going to release everything because it's still, you know, the intelligence

community. But here's a pretty good, somewhat publicly legible report kind of detailing and attributing this effort. Canada doesn't do that. We don't do anything close to that. I tried repeatedly to get an interview with CSIS for the story. They refused. That's not altogether surprising for CSIS. The reality is the Canadian government doesn't seem terribly interested in attribution or transparency here. Now, the one thing I will give them credit

for is that they did ultimately identify my friend in the Russian embassy, Kirill, as being responsible for some of this disinformation. And he was expelled from Canada as being functionally a spy. This in a statement from Canada's foreign affairs minister. The four have been identified as intelligence officers or individuals who have used their diplomatic status to undermine Canada's security or interfere in our democracy. That was maybe one of the more public-facing things the government's done, but they need to do much more. There needs to be a dialogue about this or else there's going to be a level of skullduggery and distrust. Justin, we'll leave it here today, but I have a feeling we're going to be talking to you about

this again. Can't wait. I hope you'll come back. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. On Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Krista Freeland waded into an increasingly tense situation developing between Russia and the Ukraine. She condemned Russia's seizure of three Ukrainian naval vessels near Crimea. We call on Russia to immediately de-escalate. I spoke with Ukraine's foreign minister, Pavlo Klimkin,

and assured him of Canada's unwavering support for Ukraine's sovereignty. sovereignty. For this story, we reached out to the office of the Minister of Democratic Institutions, Karina Gold. They sent back a statement saying that the minister is committed to ongoing constructive dialogue with social media companies and Canadians. With regards to Facebook in particular, they said, while there will always be actors looking to exploit loopholes and circumvent laws, we very much expect Facebook to take every necessary step to fix the issues that enabled bad actors to so successfully manipulate the platform. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.

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