Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government was warned more than two years ago that it had to take action to counter threats from state actors like China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, says a summary of a secret cabinet document made public by the foreign interference inquiry Monday.
The government was also warned that hostile activity by state actors (HASA) was on the rise and presented “one of the greatest threats to Canada’s national security.”
“It described HASA as a multi-faceted threat that targets Canada’s strategic interests, the integrity and the security of Canadian institutions and democratic processes, and the ability for members of the public to exercise their Charter-protected rights and freedoms,” says the summary of the memorandum written in May 2022.
The summary said the intelligence community had seen the threats increase in volume and intensity and Canada had to do a better job of countering them.
“Canada possesses tools and levers to counter HASA, but these tools require better coordination, and in some cases, modernization to address an increasingly dynamic, complex threat environment characterized by emboldened and aggressive threat actors,” the summary said. “The memorandum to cabinet also noted that in some cases, additional resources to bolster Canada’s ability to respond to this threat are required.”
The memorandum proposed, among other things, making Canada a “harder, more resilient target by taking a whole-of-society approach,” taking concrete steps to deter HASA, considering new legislative tools to counter the activity and getting the RCMP to “develop new capabilities and undertake new activities.”
Michel Juneau-Katsuya, the former CSIS Asia-Pacific division chief and senior intelligence officer; Sheila Copps, former deputy prime minister; and Duff Conacher, the founder of Democracy Watch, dig into Trudeau’s testimony before a public inquiry on foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
The document does not say what decision, if any, Trudeau’s government took in response to the memorandum.
The Privy Council Office, which serves the prime minister and the cabinet, has not yet responded to questions about the documents released by the inquiry late Monday afternoon.
The inquiry said that, following negotiations with the government, it has been granted unprecedented access to cabinet documents.
“The extraordinary degree of access by the commission to both classified information and information subject to cabinet confidence is unprecedented and reflects the importance of the inquiry’s work,” said Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue.
Earlier in the day, the inquiry was told that China’s foreign interference extends beyond elections to other key areas of Canadian society.
Martin Green, a former top foreign intelligence assessment expert with the Privy Council, said a special report prepared for the Privy Council’s Intelligence Assessment Secretariat in January 2022 concluded that China was going beyond merely trying to influence Canada.
“You can’t look at foreign interference just solely through the lens of the electoral system,” Green told the inquiry. “I think it’s much bigger than that. You’re seeing … kind of hybrid tools being brought to bear.
“So in the case of a country like China, there is clearly a very sophisticated tool kit which involves foreign defence, national security and intelligence activities, there’s economic coercion, there’s military pressure, there’s espionage. So there’s a suite of tools that are brought to bear that we’re seeing much more often.”
Green said he consulted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former national security adviser David Morrison about the special report. He said he later sent the report to Morrison’s successor Jody Thomas, and raised the issue with her during a number of meetings.
Green said he couldn’t explain why Thomas didn’t share the report with Trudeau. The report was completed shortly before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and as truckers began staging a convoy protest in Ottawa against government pandemic measures, which went on to paralyze the nation’s capital for three weeks.
“The government’s willingness to disclose this information to the commission will assist me in developing recommendations that will help to preserve the integrity of Canada’s electoral processes and democratic institutions and enhance Canadians’ trust and confidence in their democracy.”
The foreign interference inquiry was set up following media reports which accused China of interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
In her initial report, made public in May, Hogue found that while it was possible that foreign interference occurred in a small number of ridings, she concluded it did not affect the overall election results.
The inquiry continues Tuesday with testimony from current and former officials from the Public Safety department.