The Liberal government says measures to monitor and assess foreign interference threats will be part of all future federal byelections, not just general elections.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Monday the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force (SITE) will be watching for signs of meddling in two September byelections: one in Quebec, the other in Manitoba.
The federal body, established in 2019 to protect the electoral process, includes representatives of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the RCMP, Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s cyberspy agency.
The SITE task force already has some experience monitoring federal byelections this year and in 2023.
During byelections, the task force will provide intelligence assessments to a committee of deputy ministers. In turn, the committee will brief and advise ministers responsible for fighting foreign interference and shielding democratic institutions from harm, LeBlanc said in a statement.
Lines of communications “continue to be opened” with representatives of political parties to ensure engagement as necessary over the course of a byelection period, the statement added.
The SITE task force will also produce both a classified and an unclassified report on its overall assessment of any attempts at foreign meddling during a byelection.
The classified report will be made available to the prime minister, relevant ministers, the national security and Intelligence committee of parliamentarians — made up of MPs and senators — and security-cleared representatives of political parties, the statement said.
The next scheduled byelections, in Elmwood-Transcona in Winnipeg and LaSalle-Émard-Verdun in Montreal, will be held on Sept. 16.
The process is somewhat different during general elections, when the federal cabinet assumes a “caretaker” role limited to routine, non-controversial functions.
Under a protocol introduced in 2019 for general elections, there would be a public announcement if a panel of bureaucrats determined that an incident — or an accumulation of incidents — threatened Canada’s ability to have a free and fair vote.
The panel receives information from sources including the SITE task force.
There was no such announcement concerning either the 2019 or 2021 general elections. In both ballots, the Liberals were returned to government with minority mandates while the Conservatives formed the Official Opposition.
In a recent report, a national spy watchdog found the SITE task force and the panel “were not adequately designed to address traditional, human-based foreign interference.”
The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency report noted the task force focuses on threat activities during the election period, but “traditional foreign interference also occurs between elections.”
Unlike broad patterns or campaigns — such as widespread online disinformation — intelligence on traditional foreign interference in elections is typically granular and specific, pertaining to the activities of individuals in particular ridings, the report said.
“Assessing the impact of those activities at the riding-by-riding level requires receiving and analyzing all relevant intelligence on an ongoing basis,” it said. “This is doubly challenging given the short time frame in which elections occur.”
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Similarly, a core feature of traditional foreign interference is that it takes place over the long term and is not confined simply to election periods, the watchdog said.
While the SITE task force operates continually, its capacity and operational tempo is reduced outside election periods.
The intelligence review agency’s findings followed an interim report from a federal commission of inquiry, which said foreign meddling by China did not affect the overall results of the 2019 and 2021 general elections.
In her report, commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue said while it is possible that outcomes in a small number of ridings were affected by interference, this cannot be said with certainty.
