Canadian elected officials are being targeted by influence campaigns orchestrated by China and other countries hostile to Canada, according to a senior official from Canada’s spy agency.
Michelle Tessier, deputy director of operations at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told a Tuesday Commons hearing on foreign interference in elections that hostile countries will sometimes use proxy agents – go-betweens who appear to have no connection to foreign governments.
“We know China, amongst other countries, do try to target elected officials at all levels of government to promote their own national interests and to encourage individuals to speak or act, if you will, as proxies on behalf of the Communist Party of China,” Ms. Tessier said.
During an hour-long appearance before the Commons committee on procedure and House affairs, Ms. Tessier spoke cautiously, providing few specific details.
She was joined by Alia Tayyeb, deputy chief of signals intelligence at the Communications Security Establishment, another federal agency, which decodes, translates and analyzes intercepted communications.
Ms. Tayyeb told MPs that foreign influence activities have become the new normal, with adversaries seeking to influence elections and impact international discourse on current events.
Between 2015 and 2020, she said, the vast majority of online efforts to undermine democratic processes could be attributed to state-sponsored actors.
She said misinformation, disinformation and malinformation – accurate information shared in a manner intended to do harm – propagated by state-sponsored people and groups represents an ongoing, persistent threat to Canadians.
Ms. Tayyeb said this state-sponsored online activity is impacting Canadians by taking aim at both individuals and Canada’s economy at large. Activists and members of Canada’s diaspora populations may be targeted, she said.
CSIS has previously raised alarms on this issue. In January, the service for the first time warned individual MPs and senators from all major parties about influence operations being carried out by China and other adversarial states. The agency declined to say, at the time, whom it had briefed.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Conservative MP Michael Cooper asked Ms. Tessier if agents acting for hostile countries were threatening and intimidating people on Canadian soil. She said those agents would use a number of techniques, including making threats to communities.
Asked about how frequent these activities are, she declined to provide specifics. But she said CSIS is “increasingly concerned.”
Earlier in the hearing, Stéphane Perrault, who is Canada’s chief electoral officer, said the threat of foreign actors in Canadian elections is a matter of great concern. But he said Elections Canada hadn’t experienced any breaches in its computer infrastructure during the past two general elections, and that the agency wasn’t aware of any efforts by foreign actors to interfere with the votes.
Asked by Mr. Cooper whether China interfered in the last federal election, held in 2021, Ms. Tessier said she could not get into operational details of CSIS’s investigations.
“But what I will say is we know the Chinese Communist Party is involved and interested in promoting their own national interests,” she said.
She also said CSIS is concerned about countries hostile to Canada using the media as a weapon, through disinformation and misinformation. But she was not more specific.
For subscribers: Get exclusive political news and analysis by signing up for the Politics Briefing.
Ian Bailey