Canada Shields Democracy from Foreign Interference

Foreign interference poses a growing threat to Canada's democratic institutions. The Government of Canada is working to ensure that Canadians can maintain their trust in Canada's democratic institutions. This includes a series of measures already in place, as well as ongoing work to further strengthen our electoral system against foreign interference. We are also continually reviewing measures in the context of new and evolving threats to ensure that we can detect, deter, and counter foreign interference in our democratic institutions.

The Government of Canada has taken a number of steps to continue to protect and strengthen our democracy from foreign interference include:

• The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force: The SITE Task Force is comprised of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE), Global Affairs Canada (GAC), and the Royal Canadian Mounted Policy (RCMP) and provides enhanced monitoring and assessment of foreign interference threats during the election period. Since May 2023, the SITE Task Force has also been active for all by-elections (10 in total) and tasked with producing public reports of its observations of any foreign interference directed at by-elections. The SITE Task Force has and continues to play an important role in safeguarding Canada's elections and democratic institutions. Under their mandates, SITE Task Force members continually undertake activities to detect and counter foreign interference. These assessments are provided to the Deputy Minister Committee on Intelligence Action, which stands ready to brief and advise ministers with mandates to counter foreign interference and protect Canada's democratic institutions. As leadership contests play a crucial role in maintaining the integrity of our democratic processes, the SITE TF is available to support any future leadership contests for all political parties recognized by the House of Commons.
• An Act respecting countering foreign interference: New legislation protects people in Canada and further strengthens Canada's counter-foreign interference toolkit, by:
  • Enhancing the government's ability to detect, disrupt and protect people in Canada against the threats posed by foreign interference. This includes changes to the Security of Information Act, the modernization of the 40-year-old Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the modernization of certain Criminal Code offences. It also amends the Canada Evidence Act to introduce a standardized regime to protect and use sensitive information in certain administrative proceedings in the Federal Court of Canada.
  • Establishing the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act (FITAA), which enables the creation of a Foreign Influence Transparency Registry overseen by a Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner. The Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner's Office will ensure transparency by exposing links between individuals influencing Canada's political processes and foreign principals. Non-compliance with the Act may lead to criminal prosecution.
  • Section 20 of the Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act (FISA) (Bill C-70) addresses surreptitious or deceptive acts that are intended to influence governmental or political processes, when those acts are done in association with, or at the direction of a foreign power. Section 20 also addresses actions linked to transnational repression.
• The Plan to Protect Democracy: In anticipation of the 2019 election, Canada took concrete action to defend Canadian democracy through the Plan to Protect Democracy. This included measures to strengthen our electoral system against cyber and other threats. Following both the 2019 and 2021 elections, elements of the Plan underwent internal and/or independent amendments, which confirmed the Plan's effectiveness. In order to safeguard future Canadian elections, key measures are being improved and renewed. This will help protect our electoral system against cyber and other threats.
• The Critical Election Incident Public Protocol (CEIPP): The Critical Election Incident Public Protocol (CEIPP) is a mechanism to communicate clearly, transparently, and impartially with Canadians during an election in the event of an incident or a series of incidents that threaten the election's integrity. The CEIPP is administered by a group of experienced senior Canadian public servants (the Panel) who, working with the national security agencies, are responsible for jointly determining whether the threshold for informing Canadians of an incident has been met, either through a single incident or an accumulation of incidents.
• G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM): The G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (G7 RRM) strengthens G7 coordination to identify and respond to foreign threats to democracies. Canada and other G7 democracies can better safeguard our democratic values and institutions by sharing information and analysis and identifying opportunities for a coordinated response. Rapid Response Mechanism Canada (RRM Canada) is the permanent secretariat to the G7 RRM. It convenes G7 RRM members and observers to drive the annual G7 RRM Action Plan and coordinate G7 efforts. During federal electoral processes, RRM Canada also monitors the digital information environment for foreign state-sponsored disinformation on domestic-related matters. It also supports Canada's international engagement on foreign state sponsored disinformation.
• Digital Citizen Initiative: The Digital Citizen Initiative is a multi-component strategy that aims to support democracy and social inclusion in Canada by building citizen resilience against online disinformation and building partnerships to support a healthy information ecosystem. It also supports a community of Canadian researchers that promote a healthy information ecosystem, to help Canadians and the Government understand online disinformation and its impact on Canadian society, and in turn build an evidence-base to identify potential action and develop future policymaking.
• The Canadian Digital Media Research Network (CDMRN): The Government of Canada invested $5.5 million to support the CDMRN, to strengthen Canadians' information resilience by researching how quality of information, including disinformation narratives, impacts Canadians' attitudes and behaviours and by supporting strategies for Canadians' digital literacy. The CDMRN also monitors online media and other sources to identify mis and dis-information.
• Canada's National Foreign Interference Coordinator: Housed within Public Safety Canada, the Coordinator plays a leading role to ensure collaboration and effectiveness in countering foreign interference. This includes ensuring a common understanding of political foreign interference, and coordination between intelligence producers and consumers to ensure both timely assessments of foreign interference threats, and advice on how to respond to these threats.

Further measures

In addition, Canada has a number of measures underway to further strengthen our democratic institutions.

These include:

• Issuing the first-ever Mandate Letter for the National Security and Intelligence Advisor, which prioritises working with the national security community to address recommendations on foreign interference emerging from the reviews of foreign interference in Canada's elections. This includes systematizing the flow of intelligence across government and working to ensure Canadians' continued trust in Canada's democratic institutions and processes.
• Ongoing work to release a National Security Strategy in 2025 that will provide vision and guidance to Canada's National Security and Intelligence Community to ensure that Canada remains free, peaceful, prosperous, and secure. The Strategy will chart a course on how the government will come together to help bolster our national security measures, including in detecting, deterring, and countering foreign interference.
• Implementing a formal process for regular security and intelligence briefings to Parliamentarians so they are informed and aware of Canada's security threat environment, including from foreign interference under the Ministerial Direction on Threats to the Security of Canada Directed at Parliament and Parliamentarians.
• Ongoing updates to Canada's Plan to Protect Democracy in advance of the fixed election date so we have the time to implement and exercise additional measures to address threats to Canada's democratic institutions and help to keep our democracy strong. . This includes continuing to work with social media platforms to communicate the Government of Canada's expectations with respect to ensuring a robust and healthy information ecosystem.

Providing information to Canadians

Since 2016-17, Canada has worked to support accountability and help foster social resilience against threats to our democratic institutions. These include:

• Biannual reports on cyber threats: Reports from the Communications Security Establishment Canada, to inform Canadians about the global trends in cyber threat activity targeting national elections and their potential impacts on Canada.
• Tools for Canadians: The Protecting Democracy Toolkits and Countering Disinformation Guidebook for Public Servants were created to help identify and become more resilient to disinformation and foreign interference. The toolkits and guidebook were tailored to the realities of elected officials and public office holders, public servants, and community leaders.
• Foreign Interference Threats to Canada's Democratic Process: Published by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), this reports on foreign interference and threats to Canada's democratic processes.
• Foreign Interference and You: Published by CSIS, to help Canadians learn about the definition of foreign interference, the targets of hostile state actors, as well as what individuals and organizations can do to mitigate the threat.
• Multistakeholder Insights: A Compendium on Countering Election Interference: The Government of Canada was a co-lead for Principle 3 of the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace (Defend Electoral Processes) to take part in leading activities on election interference and building international capacity in this area. The Paris Call Principle 3 co-leads put together a series of workshops and developed this compendium, a good practice guide to help build global expertise and understanding about the best way to counter disinformation.
• G7 RRM Annual Reports: During the G7 Foreign and Development Ministers meeting in London, Foreign Ministers committed the G7 RRM to producing annual thematic reports. The reports highlight various aspects of the evolving threat landscape. At the request of G7 Foreign Ministers, the 2021 annual report focused on disinformation as an increasingly prominent aspect of foreign interference.
• The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians: The Committee was created to review Canada's national security and intelligence organizations and provide the Prime Minister with an annual report, and special reports when needed. Since its launch, the Committee has produced a number of comprehensive reports on issues ranging from foreign interference, to cyber threats, to diversity and inclusion within the security and intelligence community.
• The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency: The Agency was created as an independent agency with the mandate to review and investigate all Government of Canada national security and intelligence activities to ensure that they are lawful, reasonable and necessary. The Agency produced a special report in April 2024 on the Government of Canada's production and dissemination of intelligence on foreign interference in the 43rd and 44th Canadian federal elections.

Evolving to meet future threats

Canada is also continually striving to evolve and adapt its foreign interference measures as updated information and research becomes available, and as the threat continues to evolve. As part of these efforts, we have valued the assessments of reports, and third-party reviews, in informing our efforts, including:

• the Report on the assessment of the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol by James Judd;
• the Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol by Morris Rosenberg;
• Countering an evolving threat: Update on recommendations to counter foreign interference in Canada's democratic institutions, a report delivered to Prime Minister by the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, and Janice Charette, Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet;
• The First Report by The Right Honourable David Johnston, Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference;
• The Initial Report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions by The Honourable Marie-Josée Hogue, Commissioner;
• The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency Review of the dissemination of intelligence on People's Republic of China political foreign interference, 2018-2023;
• The National Security and Intelligence Committee of the Parliamentarians Special Report on Foreign Interference in Canada's Democratic Processes and Institutions; and,
• The Final Report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions by The Honourable Marie-Josée Hogue, Commissioner.

The Government of Canada is considering these reports to inform the continual development of new strategies and tools that will further support the resilience of our election processes and democratic institutions from potential foreign interference.

The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that Canadians can continue to have confidence in the strength and the resilience of Canada's democracy.