Foreign interference and the Liberal leadership contest
Or, it may not be what you think
The Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) is engaged in a frantic exercise to figure out how to choose a new leader, following the announcement by Justin Trudeau on Monday, January 6, that he will be stepping down. Liberals need to have someone in place in time for the inevitable non-confidence vote once the House resumes in late March, someone ready to face the electorate with the Party behind them. Despite such a tight deadline, the Liberal Party caucus, its governing national board and the members of its national management committee, will have to re-think established rules and overturn Party conventional wisdom about leadership contests and voting. [1] In an age of foreign interference threats, and in the face of all we have learned in recent years about such threats through security agency reporting, public inquiries, parliamentary hearings and review body studies, to fail to do so would be a huge mistake.
The LPC 2016 constitution is terrifically stale-dated. [2] It was written prior to the emergence of evidence about Russian interference in the US 2016 presidential elections, and has not been updated since to take account of the acceleration and growing pervasiveness of foreign interference efforts. The Constitution vaunts the principle of inclusivity and openness over security. Eligibility to vote for your chosen leadership candidate simply requires registration (free of charge) 41 days before the vote and a pretty lax identity records check. The age limit for eligibility (14) is ludicrous. Citizenship is not a criteria; in its place there is an ambiguous requirement to be “ordinarily resident in Canada,” which can extend to international students. On top of all this, leadership contests are not subject to the Canada Elections Act, nor is there any established mechanism for Canada’s national security agencies to monitor foreign interference in party leadership contests. One will have to be created.
A huge challenge the Liberal Party faces is the baked-in requirement for amending its Constitution, which normally would necessitate a resolution presented by two-thirds of registered Liberals at a national convention. Can’t happen in the current circumstances. Some way out of that box will have to be found. The Constitution suggests that the National Board can “interpret” the document. Party lawyers should get to work.
The LPC needs to find a better balance between inclusivity and security. This goes beyond changes to its rules for voting in leadership contests. The Liberal Party needs to ensure that it has the highest levels of IT security available to protect all the candidates from digital intrusions. And, sadly, the Party will need to take extra measures to ensure the physical security of its leadership candidates. Even in the daunting conditions of a short leadership contest, the Liberal Party has a chance to show a better path to leadership campaign security, one that could influence the practices of its rival parties as we head into the next federal election. Best practices need to be arrived at for all.
The why of this may not be what you think. Concerns about foreign interference in the LPC race will no doubt be heightened when the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference releases its final report later this month. The Inquiry spent a lot of time looking at the vulnerabilities of nomination contests, in particular.
The real threat of foreign interference may reside less in the reality than in the perception. [3]After all, it is unlikely that the major, malign foreign state actors who now routinely engage in foreign interference will find much odds in trying to sway the LPC contest in favour of one candidate over another. Will the Putin regime think it can find a friend in the candidate roster; will the PRC; or Iran, India, or Pakistan? Unlikely. Same holds true for US political actors, though we don’t usually count the United States as a foreign state bad actor (the times they are a changing). That doesn’t mean that one or more foreign states and their proxies might not want to try to mess with democracy just for the sake of it, but undifferentiated messing, without any real constituency for it, is a lesser threat. Hello, the Donald; hello Elon Musk.
The real need to ensure higher levels of election contest security resides less in meeting a concrete threat than in demonstrating to Canadians that they should have confidence in the leadership outcome because security was taken seriously and any verified interference efforts were documented and reported on publicly, including in a post-mortem. Taking security and integrity seriously means tougher rules for voting eligibility, let’s say permanent resident status at a minimum, an adult (18) age floor for party membership, more stringent requirements for registration documentation, both for in-person and online voting, and an ability on the part of security-cleared party representatives to liaise with our national security agencies throughout the contest period to ensure situational awareness of any known threats. The Site Task Force (Site TF), including the disinformation unit known as the Rapid Response Mechanism, originally created as an intelligence fusion centre to provide warnings of foreign interference during general elections, will need to be mobilised for the Liberal leadership contest. Party representatives must be able to take any warnings conveyed to them by the Site TF and speak out in public about foreign interference, should that prove necessary.
The LPC can and should put up higher fences to secure the integrity of its leadership contest. At the end of the day, it will have to be able to say, publicly and with confidence, that there was no foreign interference impact on the outcome of its contest. There will be other kinds of information pollution that will be inescapable—bloviating from south of the border from the MAGA crowd; the inevitable swirl of misinformation; out on the margins conspiracy theories; run- away passions on key controversies that can lead to hate and incitement, especially the war in the Middle East.
But foreign interference—and let’s be clear about the precise definition—its the deceptive, covert practice by foreign states and their proxies to try to influence political opinion in Canada--can and must be shown as something the LPC takes seriously and has guarded against, even at the price of some give on “inclusivity” and a chaotic rush to amend an outdated Party Constitution.
[1] Evan Dyer, CBC News, “Liberals say no changes coming for leadership race, despite risk of foreign interference,” January 7, 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-leadership-foreign-interference-risk-1.7424035; Catherine Tunney, CBC News, “Liberal MPs urge party to buttress upcoming leadership race against foreign interference,” January 8, 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-caucus-trudeau-resigns-1.7425736
[2] Liberal Party of Canada, “Constitution,” May 28, 2016, https://www.liberal.ca/legacy-uploads/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/constitution-en.pdf
[3] Globe and Mail, Editorial Board, “The Liberals open the door to foreign interference,” January 8, 2025, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-the-liberals-open-the-door-to-foreign-interference/
The Liberal party and Trudeau have let the country down by being ill- prepared for a world of calamities. Unbelievable situation. The much better way to select a leader is the old fashioned way - through delegated conventions. Digitization has hindered dramatically rather than helping to ensure an open and transparent leadership selection process. Elected MPs had a role to play before they were truly and completely marginalized in every aspect of government.
The leadership contest will be a sham. We won't know which candidates were named as foreign stooges in the NSICOP report, so we must assume they are all foreign stooges. Luckily the only poor outcomes will be the wasted time and one extra PM pension ( assuming Trudeau doesn't win).