When Henry Chan, the activist of Hong Kong’s Democracy, decided to run for the nomination of a party in Saskatchewan in his hometown Saskatoon, he did not expect to come out of experience to ask whether he had been a goal of foreign interference.
Chan says that he was addressed by someone at his meet-and-greet event that he later discovered on social media, possibly connections to the Chinese communist party. In a private conversation, the person asked him “what he was prepared for the Chinese,” he said. They offered support for his nomination in return.
Chan did not accept him. He neither won the nomination, nor has the Saskatchewan party won this seat in the legislature in the provincial votes of last year.
World report51:33World Report present: How safe is your voice?
While the Canadians are preparing for the ballot paper, the integrity of this vote is more important than ever. From foreign agents to fake influencers … How serious are the risks of the Canada’s democracy? Can Elon Musk be seen as an enemy state actor? And what do civil servants do about these threats? The parliamentary reporter Janyce McGregor will tell you where we are most vulnerable, why an interference is repeated and what you need to know about this season. Featuring: Gloria Fung, The Canadian Coalition for a Foreign Influencey Transparency Registry Henry Chan, Former Co-Director of Saskatchewan Stands With Hong Kong Balpreet Singh, World Sikh Organizationskhdev Singr Radio Host Of ‘Ajj Di Awaaz’ Kiu Rezvanifar, President of the Canadian Ethnic Media Associationformer NDP MP Charlie Angusbeatrice Wayne, Director of Research and Politics, Samara Center for Democracystéphane Perrault, Kanada chief elections, Krishnamurthy, Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Law School … and more!
After watching his campaign to get partners to deal with what they were right for irregularities on the nomination seat, Chan remained questions about the integrity and security of the entire process.
“There are no rules in many of these nominations. It is basically a gong show,” Chan told CBC News. He was concerned that he was more than just the local politics and contacted the authorities of the public security authorities.
Try to trigger a interference
Once a week during this federal election campaign, reporters in Ottawa are informed of top security and secret services on an extraordinary topic: whether the coordination you cover remains safe before foreign interventions.
The officials say that they find efforts to influence the political opinions of the Canadians, including an orchestrated pressure On Chinese -speaking social media to “pollute” the digital environment with positive and negative, liberal managers Mark Carney.
The weekly briefings are a premiere for a federal election campaign. And this race only comes a few weeks after Justice had made Marie-Josée Hogue 51 recommendations to secure the Canada elections before interference.
Their investigation of the 2019 and 2021 elections did not come to the conclusion that foreign attempts at interference were sufficient to influence their results – but she wrote that interference, misinformation and disinformation would only increase in future competitions.
All of this asked Canadian how safe her voice is this choice.
“Try to interfere with that is exactly: Attempts,” said Bridget Walshe from the Communication Security Canada, Canada’s security authority for information technology, at a briefing at the beginning of this month.
The point of these updates is not to arouse unfounded fears before this vote, which is manipulated by enemy foreign actors, but the opposite. If more voters understand the threats, the officials hope that they are versed enough to recognize fake messages before shaping their political views.
This consciousness may be particularly important, although the recommendations of Hogue are largely not yet available, and changes that the Chief Electoral Officer has proposed to strengthen the integrity of Canadian democracy that is still in parliament.
According to Canada’s security and secret service threats for the election elections, the liberal leader Mark Carney was the focus of the articles, which was distributed by Youli-Yumian, the most popular news account on Wechat, which is associated with the Commission for the Central and Legal Affairs of the Chinese Communist Party of the Chinese Party.
Fake news in swing ridings?
Gloria Pilgs worries about the slow pace of these corrections. She is an advocate of democracy in Hong Kong and the convenor of a coalition of human rights groups that have been committed to establishing a foreign transparency register in Canada for years.
Mushrooms fear that Canadian political parties are still naive about how easy it is for consular officers and other proxies to set up networks that are able to penetrate their campaigns and manipulate opinions.
“I have already seen signs of … fake messages that spread in some flywrights that are the targets of the Chinese party’s Communist Party,” she said. “I warned the Ministry of Public Security and the Foreign Ministry about it, but I don’t think they took it seriously enough.”
she says Targeted then MP Kenny Chiu And other conservative candidates who had criticized human rights violations in China.
The examination of Hogue examined this disinformation and agreed that it had influenced some voters – although it is unclear whether this actually cost conservatives in 2021.
Lack of transparency drives suspicion
The examination of Hogue also made the party leadership races to penetrate more easily than general elections. Intelligence openings warned of interference attempts in the party Races that chose both conservative leaders Pierre Poilievre In 2022 and Carney at the beginning of this year.
Two Indian Canadian candidates were disqualified from the liberal guide breed because of non -specific violations: Chandra Arya And Ruby Ruby. In Dhalla’s case, the party claimed that the activities of its campaign may be the interference from foreign interventions if they had taken place during a federal campaign. Dhalla denies any misconduct.
Balpreet Singh, a lawyer who represented the SIKH coalition during public investigation, fears that the liberal party did not find out about the Hogue Commission. He represents Canadians, who with the views of these two candidates on Indian politics and never support their candidates.
Nevertheless, Singh Liberal more transparent about why they were disqualified.
“What does that say about racist candidates in general?” he said. The confidentiality “plays on these … racist tropics that we see that they are not real Canadians”.
“It would have been really better if the reasons had been clarified.”
Education, no censorship
After the British Brexit vote and the US election in 2016, Chief election officer Stéphane Perrault found that the elections of Canada recognized that it had to work with security partners to ensure that the election integrity is not endangered.
Perrault told CBC News that these events did not teach him all Canadians who understand the concepts such as the principle of a secret ballot.
As a pilot project, Canada Punjabi, Cantonese and Mandarin-speaking educators for the implementation of Civilics education programs, with new materials in other languages, to help voters to help protect the integrity of the vote.
However, fighting the disinformation is not something that Perrault believes that he is appropriate for his role. Instead of strengthening the public’s trust in the neutrality of his agency, attempts to regulate political language could cause suspicion of bias.
“The accuracy of information about a candidate, a party or a platform would undermine my credibility very, very, very much,” he said.
“I think it’s something I can’t do without endangering the legitimacy of my office.”
