Parliamentary Committee Notes: Foreign Interference - Overview of Hostile Activities
Bill C-26: An Act Respecting Cybersecurity (Parliamentary Committee Binder)
Date: August 2, 2023
Classification: Unclassified
Fully releasable (ATIP)? Yes
Branch / Agency: NCSB/PS
Foreign Interference: Overview of Hostile Activities
Proposed Response:
- In recent years, Canada has seen an increase in the frequency and sophistication of foreign interference activities including by the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Russian Federation, and others seeking to advance their political, economic and security interests to the detriment of Canada's.
- Foreign interference is a cross-cutting threat that can target Canada's democratic institutions, communities, economy, sovereignty, and critical infrastructure (including supply chains). Activities can include harassment and intimidation of Canadian communities, as well as cyber-incidents, disinformation campaigns, and other disruptive actions.
- The Government of Canada will not tolerate these activities. We remain committed to combatting foreign interference by protecting Canadian citizens and communities, safeguarding our democratic institutions, and promoting economic security all while ensuring transparency and respect for the rule of law.
- We continue to work closely with our security and intelligence partners, both inside and outside the federal government, to counter foreign interference and lessen its impact on Canadians. As part of these efforts, the Government of Canada:
- Conducts threat assessments and, where applicable, criminal investigations to understand threats and to provide advice to decision-makers;
- Provides tools and guidance to Canadians to help individuals better identify disinformation and mitigate its impact;
- Provides mechanisms for public reporting through the CSIS and RCMP websites and national security threat phone lines;
- Engages with communities at risk in Canada to help them better protect themselves against foreign threats;
- Assists critical infrastructure owners and operators defend critical cyber security systems upon which Canadians rely;
- Engages with industry, academia and sectors of importance to inform them of the threats and to help them better understand how to protect their work; and
- Uses the full range of diplomatic tools against states that perpetuate threats to Canadian interests;
- Coordinates and shares information on hostile state activities with Five Eyes partners, and other allies, such as G7 and NATO.
- Adopts a holistic approach to protecting Canada's democratic institutions and practices from interference, as exemplified by the 2019 Plan to protect Canada's democracy; and,
- Enhances citizen resilience to disinformation by helping Canadians to become better informed about disinformation tactics and actors, and by enhancing transparency.
- While the Government of Canada has a number of robust and longstanding initiatives in place to counter this pervasive threat, foreign interference remains a moving target.
- To this end, in March 2023, the Prime Minister announced a series of initiatives to take further action to combat foreign interference and uphold confidence in our democratic institutions.
- This included the launch of public consultations to guide the creation of a Foreign Influence Transparency Registry in Canada to ensure accountability from people who advocate on behalf of a foreign government.
- The Government of Canada is also making significant investments in our Counter-Foreign Interference capabilities. Budget 2023 includes $13.5 million over five years, starting in 2023-24, and $3.1 million ongoing to Public Safety Canada to establish a National Counter-Foreign Interference Office.
- Budget 2023 also includes $48.9 million over three years for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to protect Canadians from harassment and intimidation by foreign actors, to increase its investigative capacity, and to more proactively engage with communities at greater risk of being targeted.
- These investments build on Budget 2022, where the government committed $13.4 million to renew and expand the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism over the next five years, to address foreign threats to democracy. This was in addition to $12.9 million over five years to establish a Research Security Centre at Public Safety Canada to protect Canadian research, while strengthening the security posture at universities and research institutions.
- These significant investments will contribute to increasing the Government of Canada's capacity in its ongoing efforts to counter-foreign interference.
- Protecting the safety and security of Canadians remains at the heart of our approach. We will continue to work closely both inside and outside the federal government, domestically and abroad, to strategically counter foreign interference
Foreign Interference: Overview of Hostile Activities Background:
Foreign interference (FI) includes activities undertaken by state or non-state actors that are harmful to Canada's interests and are clandestine or deceptive, or involve a threat to any person. Techniques used to conduct FI can include espionage, sabotage, illicit and corrupt financing, and other threat activities. Foreign states leverage these activities to advance their strategic interests including: domestic stability, seeking geopolitical influence, economic advancement, revision of the rules-based international order, and military advantage. These activities can be directed at Canadians, or residents of Canada, or against Canadian institutions to advance their strategic interests at the expense of our national interests and values.
Through its mandate to investigate threats to the security of Canada, including foreign interference, CSIS has seen multiple instances of foreign states targeting Canadian institutions and communities. As well, the RCMP is aware that illegal state-backed activities are committed against Canadians and Canadian interests, and investigates these activities further to its mandate. The scope of potential FI activities can be broad, encompassing a range of techniques that are familiar to intelligence agencies. These include human intelligence operations, the use of state-sponsored or foreign influenced media and disinformation campaigns, and the use of sophisticated cyber tools.
Several reports have highlighted the threat of FI in Canada. For example, in its 2021 Public Report, released in April 2022, CSIS stated that foreign interference activities in Canada continue to be sophisticated, persistent, and pervasive. Espionage and foreign-influenced activities are directed at Canadian entities both inside and outside of Canada, and directly threaten Canada's national security and strategic interests. Furthermore, the 2019 Annual Report of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) outlined foreign interference activities, including the targeting of Canadian institutions by threat actors. The NSICOP (2019) report pointed to Russia and China as being particularly active in Canada and made a number of recommendations for Canada to bolster its response to the threat of FI.
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