THE federal agency created To protect Canada’s electoral process, we will monitor Liberal Party of the campaign for the leadership of Canada for possible foreign interference as the race to replace Justin Trudeau begins.
The Security and Intelligence Election Threats (SITE) Working Group was established in 2019 and includes representatives from CSIS, the RCMP, Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment, the the country’s signals intelligence agency.
Since May 2023, SITE has been active in the 10 by-elections that have taken place and has been tasked with producing public reports on observations of any foreign interference directed towards these votes, and Nathalie Drouin, Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council, has said he would do it again.
The announcement comes amid concerns that foreign interference could come into play as the Liberals seek to appoint their first leader since 2013, when Trudeau took the reins.
Dennis Molinaro, a professor at Ontario Technological University and former federal security analyst, told Global News last week that leadership races are “extremely vulnerable” to attempts at interference, especially since the rules of the races are set by the political parties themselves.
He said the party’s old way of electing a leader was “terrible” in that it left the door open to foreign agents; before the new rules were announced last weekit was not necessary to be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada to be able to vote.
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The new rules require Canadian citizenship or permanent residence and the voter must be at least 14 years old, as well as not have publicly declared their intention to be a candidate in an election or a member of another federal political party .
Molinaro said the new rules are welcome but “insufficient” unless there is a verifiable way to verify and confirm citizenship.
According to Drouin, who is also national security and intelligence advisor to the Prime Minister, SITE would provide updates to the committee of deputy ministers on intelligence action, which would ensure that any threats to the electoral integrity is addressed quickly and effectively.
Briefings on foreign interference and protective best practices, such as increased cybersecurity and “rigorous monitoring of donations and memberships,” will be offered to all leadership candidates.
Under a protocol introduced in 2019 for the general election, a public announcement would be made if a group of bureaucrats determined that an incident – or an accumulation of incidents – threatened the ability to hold a free and fair vote .
After people fraudulently registered to vote in the Liberal leadership race, a party spokesperson said it would act to remove those registrations.
“The Liberal Party of Canada is aware of these ridiculous and fraudulent registration attempts. The Party’s national secretary has the ability to remove registrants from our lists and will remove these fraudulent profiles well in advance of any leadership vote,” Liberal spokesperson Parker Lund said in an article on X on Thursday.
The Liberal leadership vote will be the first leadership contest of a major party since the commission’s inquiry into foreign interference was established and has raised questions in recent days about whether the process could be vulnerable to foreign interference.
This new Liberal leader will become Prime Minister for as long as his party remains in the current government and will lead the party into the next election.
Drouin notes that the measures put in place for the Liberal Party leadership race will also be available for any future leadership race of all political parties recognized by the House of Commons.
—with files from Uday Rana of Global News and The Canadian Press
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