It’s Beyond Time Politicians Began Paying Serious Attention to Foreign Interference in Canada

Pedestrians cross Elgin Street in view of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)

Commentary

Just how big does a security threat have to be before we start to worry?

I have a confession to make. Yes, it is true, I’ve been a huge fan of Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” ever since I watched the 1981 TV series. This irreverent, clever look at the adventures of Arthur Dent who escapes Earth just before the Vogons destroy it to build a hyperspace bypass has entertained me for decades.

There is a part in the series that bears on the topic for today: significance. In the Guide the narrator notes that “Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

Big, of course, is entirely relative. To an ant, the distance across your kitchen counter is big; to us, not so much. Driving from Ottawa to Vancouver (almost 5,000 kilometres) is big, but nothing compared to driving (!) to Jupiter (715 million kilometres). It all depends on perspective.

Which brings me to the link to national security. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed allegations (i.e., intelligence) that the People’s Republic of China interfered in the 2019 federal election as not having “a significant impact.” In this he may be correct, but he’s missing the point. The fact that our intelligence agencies detected this move, and reported it to the government, is in itself the significant point.

In fairness, Trudeau is not the first PM to ignore warnings by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that China, among others, is up to no good in undermining our democracy. For the record, CSIS investigates this kind of threat under Section 2 (b) of the CSIS Act: “foreign influenced activities within or relating to Canada that are detrimental to the interests of Canada and are clandestine or deceptive or involve a threat to any person.”

Why does this matter if in the end it did not actually determine the results of the election? Simple: because it tears away from public trust in the democratic process. It is bad enough that a foreign, unfriendly power tried to sway voters in some ridings through subterfuge, but it is even worse that as a consequence citizens may begin to doubt whether election results are fair and true.

We only have to look at our neighbours to the south to see what happens when disinformation and misinformation take root within a population when it comes to elections. Thanks to Donald Trump and many, many others expressing the conviction that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was “stolen,” we had the Jan. 2, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. And this was not a one-off event.

Arizona Republicans delayed certifying county election results by the legal deadline, alleging that the electronic voting machines were not accurate. Brazil’s Jair Bolsanaro, who lost that country’s recent election to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, railed against the results on similar grounds and even said BEFORE votes were cast that he would ignore them if he was not re-elected (“only God can remove me from office”).

This is a dangerous trend. Democracies are fragile—we only have to look at nations where leaders are chosen via the ballot box, then proceed to change laws to remain in power indefinitely. Democracies also function on a series of trust factors: trust that my vote will be registered, trust that the counting process is fair, trust that everyone has the freedom to choose, etc. If citizens no longer believe in the integrity of the system, chaos can ensue.

In the end, the “significance” of the effects of Chinese interference is not the main issue. The mere fact that it took place is. And in a world where, again to cite “Hitchhiker’s,” “there are a thousand things in the Universe ready to eat you,” it is important to take threats to national security seriously. It is not just China: Russian bots apparently had the capacity to influence key precincts in swing states in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

It is disconcerting that Canadian politicians over the decades have ignored intelligence pointing to this threat to our democracy. It is time they paid more attention to it.