Sights on SITE
The Foreign Interference Commission digs into the election threat warning mechanism
If you want a masterclass in giving clear and cogent testimony and explaining the origins and nature of the election protection mechanisms created in 2018-2019, have a listen to Allen Sutherland’s testimony on April 5 to the Foreign Interference Commission. Mr. Sutherland is head of the Democratic Institutions branch at PCO and an Assistant Secretary to Cabinet. He was ‘present at the creation’ for the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol. The CEIPP (or ‘Panel of Five’) involved the establishment of a panel of senior public servants who would have an independent power to determine during an election writ period whether election interference required a public warning to alert Canadians.
He described the Panel of Five protocol as a made-in-Canada innovation that was meant to respond to the known instances of foreign interference, for example in the US presidential election in 2016, as well as events that took place in other democratic country elections and plebiscites—noting the Brexit vote in the UK and foreign interference attempts in elections in France and Germany. He referenced what he called the “Obama dilemma,” in which the then-incumbent US president felt that he could not issue public warnings about Russian election interference targeting the Democratic party and its candidate, Hilary Clinton, and favouring the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, during an election campaign for fear that this would be seen as corrupting the democratic electoral process. To avoid the Obama trap, a different source of warning, other than from the political leadership, seemed required. This is especially true for Westminster parliamentary democracies which operate, during an election, under a restricted “caretaker” convention.
Mr. Sutherland managed the secretariat for the Panel of Five during both the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. He confirmed what is public knowledge, that the Panel issued no public warnings during the 2019 or 2021 election periods. This does not mean there was no detected foreign interference, but rather that it did not meet a nuanced understanding of the established “high threshold” for any such warning created in the Cabinet Directive (a rare instrument) that established the panel. He explained that any panel of five announcement of election interference was meant to be a measure of “last resort.” Why? In part, he explained, to ensure that warnings did not feed into any foreign state efforts to destabilise Canada. Also to reflect a desire to see the electoral and democratic ‘ecosystem’ operate independently, wherever possible, to ‘cleanse’ itself through public discourse. He also reminded the Commission that the Panel of Five was not the only governance tool to respond to foreign interference. Departments and agencies of the national security and intelligence community, including CSE, CSIS and the RCMP, could all respond according to their respective mandates.
When pressed in cross-examination about the nature of the high threshold and whether a sliding scale of concern about threats might be a better approach and allow for more information to be provided to the public, Mr. Sutherland said this issue had been considered and pointed to the independent report of Morris Rosenberg, a former deputy minister, who conducted an evaluation of the work of the election protection mechanism as it applied to the 2021 federal election. Morris Rosenberg suggested that the threshold applied by the Panel of Five should be given serious reconsideration, not least to ensure it captured not just the national picture but more specific impacts in regions and individual ridings. [1] Strangely, Erin O’Toole in his testimony before the Commission dumped on the Rosenberg report, for reasons he did not explain and was not asked about. It is also strange to me that neither Morris Rosenberg nor Jim Judd, who conducted an independent evaluation of the election protection protocol for the 2019 election, have been called to testify. Their studies are publicly available and presumably will be considered by the Commission. [2]
The Commission also heard from members of the SITE TF—the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force. This was a coordinating and intelligence sharing inter-agency body to ensure that there was a coordinated ‘eyes on’ intelligence reporting about election threats. This was another layer of election threat detection and warning that could brief multiple entities including, especially, the Panel of Five, but also to ADM and DM level consumers. In the beginning it was not, we were told, contemplated that the SITE TF would engage with the political parties, but it evolved in this direction. This broadened the audience for SITE TF reporting and required that political parties nominate representatives to engage with SITE TF and involved political party representatives acquiring secret clearances for briefings of classified briefings.
SITE produced a daily collated “sit rep” on the election foreign interference threat picture which went to its distribution list, including to the Panel of Five.
It also provided briefings to political party representatives. As the chair of the SITE TF for 2019 indicated, the idea was to open up a two-way channel of communication. Information from SITE TF to the political parties was briefed verbally. The political reps were not allowed to take notes, presumably in order to ensure the security of the information. As described, these were general threat environment briefings to raise awareness. Their usefulness has been called into question by political party reps. It was a new experiment for the intelligence community and the idea of briefing political reps was unfamiliar at the time; “secrets” may have been more closely held at the beginning, at least until a higher level of public awareness of foreign interference was achieved.
Lyall King, the chair of the SITE TF, was questioned about a particular e-mail chain he was involved in in October 2019 that referenced what he called a “massively problematic” CSIS NSB (National Security Brief) regarding 2019 election interference. This document was referenced in the previous day’s testimony. King’s concern was that the CSIS report seemed to be out of alignment with SITE TF reporting, that SITE TF had not been properly informed by CSIS about the contents of the NSB, and he was concerned about mixed messages going to the panel of Five. Mr. King referred to this as an “emotional” message.
Hey, don’t apologize. I liked the grit of this exchange. It was a refreshing reminder that Ottawa officials can rise about a culture of consensus and “politesse” when an issue seems to require it. The ability to contest intelligence, which is so important to getting intelligence right, relies on such grit.
The SITE TF final assessment of the foreign interference threat to the 2019 concluded, in August 2020, as follows:
“…SITE TF assessed that none of these foreign interference activities were part of a broad-based electoral interference campaign and did not have an impact on the overall outcome of the election. In addition, none of the activities met the threshold to pursue criminal investigation.”[3]
The afternoon panel consisted of the same department and agency representatives (CSE, CSIS, GAC, RCMP) but focused on the work of the SITE TF during the 2021 election. The question to be answered concerned the ways in which SITE TF might have functioned differently in 2021, as it would have had some chance to mature.
Mr. King from CSE, who continued in his capacity as SITE TF chair, indicated that among the changes were the impact of COVID on working practices, the absence of any advance warning about an election call, which required some scrambling, the greater concern about the security of political personalities, and enhanced reporting to the Panel of Five. In 2019 SITE TF had produced daily Sit Reps but in 2021 SITE added a weekly briefing during the election writ period to the panel. The info landscape had also changed substantially between 2019 and 2021, especially with regard to the social media space and the greater deluge of information that was circulating, including more attention paid by SITE TF to Chinese language social media, such as WeChat.
What about briefings to the political parties—anything different in 2021? According to Mr. King, no substantive changes to the method or tempo of briefings. I found that surprising and disconcerting. I think greater engagement by SITE TF with the political parties is going to be important in future.
We learned, finally, that the after-action report by the SITE TF produced in December 2021 came to three broad conclusions:
That there was no specific targeting of election infrastructure
That China had been active in foreign interference attempts
Online disinformation had been identified, especially in Chinese language media sites, but it’s source could not be definitively attributed. [4]
What we are learning, through this testimony and released documents, is just how challenging it is to determine the significance and impact of foreign interference attempts on elections and democratic processes. This difficulty is all the greater when it comes to looking at online disinformation. Somehow a meeting of minds about this reality needs to occur between the government national security and intelligence community, political parties, diaspora groups, and even the media. It’s a space, ideally, for deeply nuanced judgement. Its probably a space where deeply nuanced judgement will always be elusive.
[1] Morris Rosenberg, “Report on the Assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol,” https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/di-id/documents/rpt/CEIPP-rpt-eng.pdf
[2] James Judd, “Report on the Assessment of the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol,” May 2020, https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/di-id/documents/ceipp-eng.pdf
[3] This statement is drawn from CAN 8973, “SITE After Action Report,” August 2020 [to be posted to the FI Commission website]
[4] The relevant document is CAN 2359
There was obvious Chinese government interference in the election process, and the bureaucrats and officials did nothing, especially when it was against non-Liberal candidates.
Appreciate this useful summation.