The Current - What Canada needs to do about foreign interference

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Justice Marie-Josée Hogue found no evidence of traitors in parliament, but her final report on foreign interference highlights several other threats to Canada’s democracy. We unpack the vulnerabilities she's identified, from disinformation on social media to party leaders who have so far refused to get security clearance. 

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This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. Our democratic institutions have remained robust in the face of attempted foreign interference. That's the headline conclusion from Justice Marie-Josée Augg's inquiry into foreign interference. In her final report, she said that yes, actors like Russia and China are attempting to meddle in Canadian politics and it needs to be addressed, but so far, any interference attempts have been ineffective. She also found that while foreign actors may have tried to manipulate certain politicians, she did not find any traitors in the House.

Nor have I seen any evidence to suggest that there are currently so-called traitors in Parliament. While I saw evidence of some concerning behavior, the evidence does not show any MPs plotting with foreign states against Canada's interests. She did, however, have other warnings and 51 recommendations on how to guard against future foreign interference. To walk us through all of this, I'm joined by Michel Junot-Katsuya. He's a security expert, former CISIS Asia Pacific Chief. Michel, good morning.

Good morning, Matt. Justice Oog said that foreign interference did not impact the outcome of the last two federal elections, but that there was some limited influence on the process. What does, as you understand it, what does limited influence mean? Meaning probably that in certain writings, they succeeded in being capable to influence the vote

towards a candidate that had been selected or chosen by a foreign state, and that candidate succeeded in being elected. The outcome of that election is, of course, favorable to that country for that particular writing. But what we need to understand is that you don't need to have the majority to control or to influence the decision-making of the government. You need to have agent of influence, i.e. certain writings that succeed in getting into the government that will be capable to have meetings with the decision making process and being capable to influence that process towards helping a foreign country.

I mean, this is important in part because the headlines were explosive and that led to this inquiry. And Justice Oge was very clear saying that there are no traitors in parliament, but there are MPs whose actions are problematic. So what is problematic behavior, but not treason when it comes to foreign interference?

How do you, what's the daylight between the two? Well, we're dealing with a judge. A judge is usually sticking to the rules of law and the definition that the law gives to the word traitors. Traitors in the criminal code is defined very, very clearly. But certain actions, certain behaviors, certain accommodation that certain, that some elected officials and senators have done

through the years are close enough to be a treason to this country. And this is the disappointment. Would that be taking a meeting? What would that constitute? That would be much more than taking a meeting. That would be to very much intentionally, consciously put forward policies or Interests of a foreign countries before the interests of Canada and they do so

most of the time because they see personal gain and personal interest in doing so either because they see that they might Get the support for re-election or if they are a senator simply gaining personal gain or favor from that country. But you're suggesting that that doesn't meet the legal threshold of treason. Here that would need to be investigated much much more. I come from the operational side. She comes from the the judge or the legal justice system side. She comes also in a way that she was criticized right from the get-go from being maybe too close to the Trudeau family and already we were predicting that it would be a sweet and sour report and we had a sweet and sour report.

Sweet in the sense that it finally acknowledged that foreign interference existed, but sour because it didn't go far enough. And it basically repeated the messages that Mr. Trudeau himself said in his announcement of the public inquiry, that they would be focusing on two specific election, 2019, 2021, and specifically to look at if CESUS had made mistakes or had difficulties to communicate.

And that's exactly what she said. CESUS had difficulties to communicate information. But wait a minute, let's go back to the testimonies that were given to us. The former director of CESUS, Mr. Vigneault, himself testified twice and said, I spoke directly to the Prime Minister. I presented the evidence that we collected,

and twice I was told also to change the reports that we wrote, our thesis, in order to accommodate the narrative that the Prime Minister wanted to hear. This is not a lack of communication. This is not a problem of communication. This is not a problem of communication. This is a problem of who wants to receive the information and who doesn't want to hear what it's been said.

That's the problem. What would you like to see change then? If it's not a flow of information, which that was pointed out in this report, that intelligence was failing to reach some senior decision makers, but you're suggesting that perhaps those decision makers didn't want to receive the intelligence in the first place,

or at the very least wanted to shape the narrative. What has to change? This matters because it's about the integrity of the democracy. You're totally right. You're absolutely right. And I will go even further. This has been going on since Mr. Marrone

and every single prime minister have received the information that we were confronted to foreign interference, every prime minister either ignored or used it to its personal gain or political gain. So there's nothing new under the sun to a certain extent. And what this prime minister is blamed for has been done by others in the past. What needs to be changed in order to answer your question, we need to review basically the culture

of national security culture. The culture of protecting this country and what is important is what is at stake here. The problems of national security issues is much more profound than only foreign interference as we see. I think this is the tip of the iceberg that reveals to us that there is a huge iceberg that needs to be tackled and looked at as we speak. And this is the problem with this report. Unfortunately, it reveals something without giving us necessarily all the tools to change it.

And the problem that we're facing is the timing. The timing also sucks because currently we're having, the government is not even sitting in the House. When it will come back, it will call for election. The election will drag again for a full year before the other government, whoever it is, tackle this issue if they want to tackle this issue seriously. The problem is right from the get-go. In 1984, when Mr. Pierre-Eliott Trudeau created CESUS,

it created by design the system that we're facing today. And by design, it failed as projected and expected. And this is the problem that we are currently facing, is that the message is controlled by the decision makers, and they take what they want and they leave aside what they want. Can I ask you about some of the individuals that were caught up in this?

Because there were calls from the media, from some parliamentarians to release the names, tell us who is involved in this. And there is no list of specific MPs who had been accused of taking part in foreign interference in this report. However, Justice Oge did speak about some of the allegations, including those reported by global news against the former liberal MP Han Dong,

the claim was that he had suggested China should slow the release of Canadians, Michael Calvert and Michael Spavor. Handong denied this. Justice Hoag said that the classified information she has seen in her words corroborates Mr. Dong's denial. He is suing Global in the wake of those allegations. What happens now to the accusations like this, whether they're toward Handong or towards others who have had these allegations directed towards them. What happens now with those? Not much. Not much.

Not much. And unfortunately, it will serve foreign entities that basically watched the circus and looked at it and said, hey, it just help us. It will sort of work for us. They will adapt and they will continue exactly. Before bill C-70 that received a royal assent way back in June be put into effect and change the criminal law and change the information act so the police can investigate, the RCMP can investigate and hopefully prosecute certain individuals,

we'll probably have one or two Christmas passing by. And this is what is sad in this situation, is this report, we were hoping, some of us, we're hoping that it will provoke the government to do action and to make action. But when we look also at the behavior of certain politicians and we're about to go into election, it's four quarters for a loony. We're not getting anything that is really a form of leadership that takes seriously the defense of Canada and the defense of our democratic system. And you don't think that will change just finally? You don't think that will change in the wake of a report like this? I don't think it will change. I don't think it will change, just finally, you don't think that will change in the wake of a report like this?

I don't think it will change. I don't think it will change. And I think she concluded, and I will agree with that part, that misinformation, disinformation will only increase with the arrival of artificial intelligence. It will be even more difficult for security service to counter those attacks. If the behavior and the leadership doesn't come from our elected officials and our political leaders and they change the way they do business as we speak, we're just going to

go into deeper trouble. We'll leave it there. We're going to speak more about misinformation and disinformation next. In the meantime, Michel, thank you very much for this. Appreciate Matt. Thank you. Michelle Gino Katsuya is a former Asia Pacific chief

for CSIS, he was in Montreal. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time it's going to get personal. I don't know who sober Jeff is.

I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us now is the NDP member of parliament for Timmons James Bay, Charlie Angus. He's been a vocal advocate for the inquiry into foreign interference. Charlie Angus, good morning to you. Good morning. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for being here. How satisfied are you with this report? Well, I think what it shows us is that Canada has a culture, a political culture of indifference when it comes to protecting Canada over party interests.

It's a mediocrity of indifference. And I think what's unfortunate is a lot of attention is on the word traitor. So Justice Hogue said it didn't meet the test of traitor, just a lot of dimwits who were willing to be use Ethical lapses and questionable judgment and we'll focus on that But I think the big issue here was her statement was that she says quote the single biggest threat to democracy is online Interference and disinformation. It is an existential threat

And so matt, I think the issue, you know, trying to monkey wrench a local writing association meeting is kind of like stagecoach robbery when we're talking about 21st century methods of electoral interference and undermining. And that's the larger threat posed by the platforms like X, by Metta, and the ability of bots, deep fakes and AI. And we are simply not ready to deal with what's going to hit us in this coming election. Can I just ask you before we talk about that, about something that you posted on another platform, this is on Blue Sky and it is about, maybe this speaks to what Michelle was talking about when it comes to the culture of understanding interference.

Pierre Poliev, leader of the Conservative Party, says that he will no longer receive security briefings from CSIS. You said, this is a no-brainer. Pierre Poliev lives in a 19-room mansion funded by the taxpayer and refuses or can't get security clearance. Something stinks here.

What are you suggesting? Well, the question is, is who doesn't put Canada first? Are you suggesting he's not putting Canada first? Absolutely. What kind of person is going to run for leader of the country and not get a security clearance and get briefed on threats to our nation? I mean, I know it's a bit of a ridiculous example, but I mean, my poor mother has to get a security clearance to do food programs at the school. We've got a man who's going to be prime minister, who's the story in the media now is he's not

getting it. He's refusing to get it. He said that he was, he's not getting it because he wouldn't be able to act on that information. Well, that's ridiculous. How could he act on the information if he doesn't know what it is? So again, I think what, but I think Matt Matt that that's the issue that in the bigger problem and you know, Mr Trudeau certainly comes in for a lot of condemnation and Justice Hogue's report is that we're seeing partisan interests over the nation and Canadians are not being reassured that in the larger global threats and we are in a very dark,

dark time with everything from Russian bought information to a president who's threatening our sovereignty, that we have the steps in place to protect the integrity of our nation. And I don't see that. I don't see that with Elections Canada. I don't see that with the willingness of the government to step up at this time. And we may be barreling into an election very quickly. So I think we have to talk about this and raise some alarm bells. Let's talk about that, what Justice Oge calls the single biggest threat to our democracy, the existential threat of misinformation.

You're concerned in particular about Elon Musk influencing the election. What have you seen perhaps in his actions elsewhere, in Germany, for example, that is ringing the alarm bell for you? Well, what we saw was that when Mr. X, Mr. X, yeah, that's a pretty good example. Mr. Musk. Yes, took ex-private. Um, I mean, all the issues of content moderation was all

thrown out the window. He began to really stoke the rage, the hate bots. And then he became very close to the president and his campaign. We know that the EU is demanding access to the algorithms of X to find out whether or not they've been interfering, particularly in Germany's election. We know that Mr. Musk has made really outrageous comments, stoking race hatred in the UK at a time of explosive racial violence. He has intervened and made his position clear. He's a supporter of Mr. Poliev. He hates the Liberal government. But the problem is that we have a man who doesn't seem to have any limitations on the use of one of

the most powerful media platforms in the world. So the question that I wrote to Elections Canada was simple. Do we have the tools to hold the X platform accountable? And one of those tools would be algorithmic transparency during the writ period. So we can see whether or not Mr. X, I love that, is putting his finger on the scales because that would be direct political interference. And I don't have the reassurance that Canada is willing to do the steps that the EU is in order to protect our electoral integrity. Why would Elon Musk care what Elections Canada says? Well, this is a really good point. I actually did hear back from Elections Canada, Mr. Perot,

and he did refer me to their recent report, which said that Canada, in in 2019 we have a voluntary signed declaration of electoral integrity by certain platforms. Well other people actually have to follow the laws when it comes to elections. Why are we content that there would be an electoral a voluntary electoral declaration? They've said that they're asking online platforms to publish their content moderation policies. Well, Elon and Metta have made it clear that they don't have content moderation policies. So the question is, given the threats that we're facing and a threat of a really destabilized world with the Trumpocracy taking power, are they willing to be proactive and say, or are

they able to ensure that that kind of interference can't happen? Because I think it would be incredibly naive to think that Mr. uh, Elon Musk is not going to use that massive power of the X algorithm in a Canadian election. What specifically are you worried about? As you've said, he, he has already, um, you know, supported tweets saying that, that's Pierre Pauliev should be the next prime minister, has attacked Justin Trudeau. And this concern in that letter that you wrote to Elections Canada was around the promotion or

suppression of political content. So what specifically would that mean in the next election whenever that happens? Well, we've seen in Germany, his open promotion of far right extremist parties. If he's up doing rallies for them, are we to think that he's not using the platform to promote certain views over others?

And Matt, I go back to 2018, 2019, when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, I was part of what became an international parliamentary committee investigating. The ability at that time, it was data mercenaries to upend elections through abuse of the Facebook platform. And what became really clear in the Brexit vote was you didn't need mass numbers to win an election. If you knew your constituencies and you could switch 16 votes

at one poll and eight votes at another poll, you could change the election outcome. And that seems to what happened at Brexit, and we never got the tools in place to stop that from happening again. But again, what was in 2018 is very different than 2025. We're now seeing massive

offshore bot farms interfering. We're seeing AI, as your previous guest said, the issue of deep fakes. We are now are I think our electoral system is not in any way able to over, to deal with this kind of interference because people are no longer getting their news

from television, they're not getting it from newspapers, they're getting it online. And this is where Elon Musk has a very, very powerful tool at his disposal. I have to let you go, but that suggests, I mean, the election could come within a matter of weeks. That suggests that this country is no better, and it's a bit of what Michelle said as well, no better prepared for, for what may

be coming than, than we were before this report came out in some ways. We are not better prepared, but the other side is much more, uh, militant and armed at this point, and their focus is attacking democracy, whether it's in Canada or in Europe or anywhere in the world. That is the concern. And I think it's something that all parliamentarians need to say, just take a breath and say, are we willing to put Canada ahead of our own interests? That's the question. Charlie, good to talk to you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Charlie Angus, NDP member of parliament for Timmons, James Bay in Ontario.