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Advisory Committee of Political Parties – Meeting Summary – February 13 and 14, 2019

12. Electoral Security: Presentation by CSIS and CSE

Presenters: André Boucher (Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security) and Michael Peirce (Assistant Director of Intelligence, Canadian Security Intelligence Service)

Note: This session was originally planned for 10 am on Day #2. A late scheduling change caused this session to switch places with the Commissioner of Canada Elections session. In this summary it appears in the sequence as originally planned in the meeting agenda (see appendix A).

Mr. Boucher briefed ACPP members that state-sponsored adversaries will very likely attempt to target Canadians’ opinions through malicious online influence activity during the 43rd General Election. He then briefed party representatives on techniques they can use to identify and handle three common types of email attacks: spear phishing messages, spam, and potentially criminal emails. He also provided additional guidance to party representatives on how they can protect themselves online with techniques such as regularly reviewing privacy settings, using a password manager, using trusted devices, enabling two-factor authentication, best practices for recovery processes and urged them to report the situation if they suspect they have been compromised.

Mr. Peirce briefed party representatives on CSIS’s mandate to investigate potential threads to the security of Canada and advise the Government or take some measures to reduce the threats they detect. Mr. Peirce went on to draw a distinction between Foreign Interference and Foreign Influenced Activity explaining that Foreign Interference (FI) differs from normal diplomatic conduct or acceptable foreign state-actor lobbying. He noted that Foreign Interference presents an ongoing and persistent threat and that it is increasing in volume and aggressiveness. He cautioned ACPP representatives that foreign states may attempt to damage, discredit or influence candidates and officials via clandestine, deceptive or threatening means and he predicted that threat activities will intensify ahead of the 2019 election.

Mr. Peirce concluded with a brief rundown of CSIS’s role in the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force, which is comprised of CSIS, CSE (Communications Security Establishment), GAC (Global Affairs Canada) and RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police).

The session concluded with a question and answer period with ACPP members. Elections Canada, CSE and CSIS answered questions about:

  • The permissibility of sharing this information and whether it was protected or classified (none of the information is classified and CSE committed to putting a guide to running a secure campaign on cyber.gc.ca for those interested);
  • Whether and how foreign money could influence nomination process for political parties (CSIS/CSE could not speak in detail given the classification level but noted there are many vectors for influence and that it is much more difficult to transfer large sums of money);
  • Clarification of the distinction between clandestine or deceptive foreign influenced activity and lawful advocacy about particular form of governance;
  • The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force and why Elections Canada is not a member (Elections Canada receives security briefings as necessary but mindfully chose against membership in the task force in order to ensure its independence is not compromised); and
  • Whether any Government of Canada departments are considering an online bill of rights or other legislation similar to that of the European Union.