First some old news, as a prelude to new news. At a lengthy press conference on March 6, the Prime Minister mounted a belated defence of the government’s policy on foreign interference since coming into office in 2015, while also announcing a slew of reviews of the handling of foreign interference threats. Slew means four, which is a remarkable number in and of itself and a sign of serious disarray in public policy.
At the heart of the press conference was a recognition that public confidence in the government’s handling of national security threats had been shaken by intelligence leaks and press reporting, and that the government’s hands’ were significantly tied by partisan allegations –some very extreme--that have swirled around election interference claims. The government needed desperately to find a way out of a deep trust deficit.
https://www.cpac.ca/episode?id=767307e1-9ab2-4690-85d5-2deb51dffd60
The headline-grabber was the announcement of an independent special rapporteur, subsequently named as the former Governor-General, David Johnston. In addition to the work of the special rapporteur, the two review bodies established by the Liberal government, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP, created in 2017) and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA, created in 2019), were requested to do their own investigations into the government’s handling of election interference threats. Last, but not least, was a study to be conducted by the Dominic Leblanc, the Minister of many things, (formally Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities), in combination with the Clerk of the Privy Council, to address previous recommendations on protecting democratic practices made by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and by two independent studies (by Jim Judd and Morris Rosenberg) that examined the workings of the government’s mechanism for protecting elections during the writ period. As a house-cleaning exercise this was pretty unusual and came close to an admission that government policy had lagged.
Why Leblanc? He is a veteran Minister, and a trusted confidante of the Prime Minister. ‘Nuff said, perhaps. But his December 2021 mandate letter also gives him marching orders to “lead an integrated government response to protect Canada’s democratic institutions, including the federal electoral process, against foreign interference and disinformation.”
The Leblanc report had the tightest deadline—it was to be delivered within 30 days of the Prime Minister’s press conference, so is first out the gate. It represents an important signal of how the government will handle allegations that it has been negligent on the election interference threat file, and how it plans to move forward.
https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/di-id/documents/rpt/rapporteur/Countering-an-Evolving-Threat.pdf
Psst—the Leblanc report is the new news, at least new as of its release on April 6 (I am catching up). The report got little detailed press attention, as the media waits for the big reveal from the special rapporteur on May 23.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-david-johnston-foreign-interference-probe/
The first issue the Leblanc report highlights is that of public knowledge and the government’s responsibility to communicate to Canadians the nature of the threat posed by foreign interference. There is a real problem here—widespread Canadian illiteracy on national security (not to be blamed on Canadians, I hasten to add). The solution does not rest, as the Leblanc report would have it, solely with the publication of CSIS annual public reports, or whatever might emerge from the office of the newly-created “National Foreign Interference Coordinator” (TBD), an official wrongly placed, in my view, in the Department of Public Safety, which lacks strong policy capacity and does not control the entire apparatus of government foreign interference mechanisms (CSE and GAC are both outside its orbit). By the way, if you think the concept of a National Foreign Intelligence Coordinator is a novel or imaginative response by the government, well it is not—it is basically a concept lifted from Australia, which established a similar Coordinator position in its department of Home Affairs five years ago.
https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/national-security/countering-foreign-interference/cfi-coordinator
As for CSIS publications as an avenue for timely public education, note that the latest CSIS public report covers the years 2020-21 and was published on May 6, 2022. CSIS public reports are retrospective in feel, are not forward looking (they should take a leaf out of the latest CSE cyber threat assessment) and must cover the waterfront of CSIS activities. In the most recent version, election security gets a paragraph; foreign interference more broadly, a page. CSIS public reports have their uses, but cannot possibly fill the cavernous gap that exists in terms of a public understanding of the complex and fast-changing threat environment created by foreign interference.
There is a vague promise in the Leblanc report that ministers and senior national security officials “will find further opportunities to keep Canadians informed of the extent of foreign interference.” Further than what, I wonder? Public addresses by senior national security officials are a rare occurrence in Canada. Almost all recent ones have been initiated by a Canadian think tank—the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Speeches by ministers addressing the national security landscape vie with hen’s teeth for scarcity. There is no annual statement on national security threats similar to that produced by the US Director of National Intelligence to Congress. There is no national security strategy to serve as a vehicle for public education and by which the government could be held to account.
There are other elements in the Leblanc report which suggest that more juice is being applied to existing practices. For example, we read that the new National Foreign Interference Coordinator “will work on expanding briefing mechanisms with provincial/territorial, municipal and indigenous officials.” But in reality, its not expansion—the ‘work ‘ will have to start from scratch. It will be dogged by challenges around the sharing of classified information, not least given current restrictions imposed by the CSIS Act.
Remarkably, there is no reference whatsoever in the LeBlanc report to the government’s own “National Security Transparency Commitment,” which was announced alongside the introduction of national security framework legislation (Bill C-59) in 2017. The commitment was an ambitious undertaking based on six principles for delivery of public information. Making good on those principles since 2017 has been underwhelming, to say the least, and the silence regarding the commitment in the Leblanc report suggests that the national security transparency initiative has been shelved altogether.
Nor is there any indication of a government willingness to be more transparent about the setting of intelligence priorities, so that Canadians might appreciate just where on the spectrum of national security threats, foreign interference might be placed. Does it get top billing? Should it get top billing? How and when does the Cabinet shuffle the deck on intelligence priorities in response to changing threat assessments?
A second theme in the Leblanc report concerns governance—essentially how well the machinery of government is functioning to deal with foreign interference and how robust current laws might be. Here the report puts considerable stock in a future creation of a foreign influence registry (public consultations are now underway) and in the future work of the National Foreign Interference Coordinator. The shape of both remains to be determined. Neither solution matches the scale of the issue.
A stickier problem, identified by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians in its landmark 2019 study of foreign interference is the lack of an agreed understanding of the foreign influence threat across multiple government departments, and the incoherence in response that is a by-product. No Coordinator, no matter how senior and respected, will be able to solve this problem on their own, especially a Coordinator situated within the Public Safety department and not at the right hand of the Clerk and the National Security and Intelligence Adviser at PCO. Real coordination will require action and agreement, possibly some head-butting, at the Ministerial level.
The 2019 study by NSICOP can be found in its annual report, chapter 2, here:
https://www.nsicop-cpsnr.ca/reports/rp-2020-03-12-ar/annual_report_2019_public_en.pdf
(The NSICOP report garnered virtually no media attention at the time)
The Leblanc report is silent on a key solution and major recommendation proposed by NSICOP back in 2019—namely the development of a “comprehensive strategy to counter foreign interference and build institutional and public resiliency.” The Trudeau government has been willing to craft all kinds of single-issue strategies—for example on critical minerals, the Indo-Pacific, and defence (update in the slow-motion works). More are meant to be forthcoming—on cyber security and economic security. But for reasons that escape me, they shy away from a more comprehensive and integrated approach, especially when it comes to national security. The absence of such a strategy was felt during the Freedom Convoy crisis in 2022. The National Security and Intelligence Adviser referenced the problem, in testimony before the Rouleau commission. Efforts to improve governance of responses to foreign influence threats will be ineffective without such a strategy. A comprehensive and public strategy would also be the best instrument for improving public knowledge. Give me a strategy over an occasional speech any day. (BTW, the Australians have a tidy one, https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/national-security/countering-foreign-interference/cfi-strategy)
What the Leblanc report does commit to, in clearer language than anything seen to date, is a much-needed modernization of the CSIS Act (the core of which dates back to 1984), to be led by the Public Safety Minister. This will be a heavy lift, not least to provide CSIS with the authority to share intelligence and assessments with other levels of government and private sector stakeholders, to simplify the rules around collection of digital data, and to better define the scope of its authorities in dealing with foreign interference. A substantial rethinking of section 2 of the CSIS Act, which identifies the relevant national security threats that CSIS must engage with (espionage, foreign influenced activities, ideologically motivated violence, subversion), may be required. To win sufficient public support for changes to the Act will take some doing, not least to alter an Act that was substantially over-written in its day and rooted in historic concerns about decades-old scandals and potential abuses of intelligence power.
There is also a promise to consider making changes to other parts of the legal framework, including the Security of Information Act (untouched since 2001), the Criminal Code and the Canada Elections Act.
In truth, many of the initiatives now being contemplated by the government were first recommended by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians in 2019 and tabled in Parliament in 2020. Key recommendations around improving public knowledge, developing a coherent government strategy, and instituting legislative changes are met in the Leblanc report with some important promises of action (especially with regards to the CSIS Act), but no one should look to that report for any impetus towards radical changes in approach to national security transparency or any embrace of a dedicated foreign influence strategy.
The Leblanc report operates instead in a safe space between a classic “steady as you go” response and an endorsement of selective and incremental change. There is a tension there which should provide meat for David Johnston’s findings as special rapporteur. His terms of reference were made public on April 5 in an Order in Council.
https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/attachment.php?attach=43487&lang=en
One element stands out for me (mandate 2(d)):
“considering potential innovations and improvements to public agencies and to their coordination in order to combat foreign interference in federal elections.”
Innovation—now there is a clarion call. As the review ball is passed to Mr. Johnston, he has an opportunity to be innovative about two things, and must not get bogged down in machinery of government changes.
One area desperate for innovation concerns efforts to enhance Canadians’ understanding of foreign influence threats. These have to go far beyond occasional speeches and generic public annual reports from CSIS. Who could be better placed than Dr. David Johnston, who spent much of his long career in academia, including as a University president, to ponder the challenges of public education in Canada and come up with innovative solutions to enhancing public knowledge about national security threats. He will appreciate that the challenge goes beyond identifying threats and being open about government response capabilities. It must include a deep appreciation of the dangers of calling out ‘enemies in our midst,’ in ways that could easily inspire racism and xenophobia, and lead to a chill in the political engagement of ethnic communities in Canada. Dr. Johnston will understand that here are enhanced roles to be played by many sectors of society in this endeavour, including academia, the media, the think tank world, and advocacy groups. Few are currently well equipped to take on such a task.
A second and related innovation that is needed is the approach to strategic policy making and an understanding of the value of comprehensive public policy statements outlining the nature of national security threats and the responses adopted to confront them. A comprehensive national security strategy that addresses, among many challenges, the foreign influence threat, is the best signal possible of serious engagement by a government, and a key tool of accountability.
What could be more innovative than casting aside quaint and outmoded arguments about a public that has no appetite for understanding national security issues and a government that has no incentive to engage in real and substantive communications with Canadians and no need for strategic, forward-looking thinking.
Have a go, Dr. Johnston.
I hope the study includes looking at our allies especially from the USA. It seems as if the convoy to Ottawa had alot of Republican influences and possibly Russian pushing misinformation and disinformation. Political and terrorist organizations need to be treated seriously.
A comprehensive and integrated approach to national security should be one of the hallmarks of cabinet government in any Westminster system.