Feds are introducing measures to protect against potential foreign interference in upcoming midterm elections

According to Secretary of Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc, the federal government has taken new measures to protect against possible foreign interference in several midterm elections between June 19 and June 24.

Voters will go to the polls on June 19 by-elections in the Quebec drive of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Westmount, the drive of Oxford in southern Ontario, the Winnipeg South Center drive, and Portage-Lisgar, another Manitoba drive.

The fifth by-election will take place on June 24 at Calgary Heritage’s Alberta Riding School.

LeBlanc’s department says the new measures include “enhanced monitoring and assessment” of potential security and intelligence threats Task Forcewhich consists of CSIS, the RCMP, Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment.

The task force’s assessments will be handed over to the deputy minister’s committee on intelligence response, which will then be “ready to brief and advise ministers” whose mandates include combating foreign interference, the press release said.

LeBlanc’s department also says “lines of communication” have been opened between the task force and “designated political party representatives to ensure involvement should it become necessary in the course of the midterm elections.”

It goes on to say that the task force will write both a secret and non-secret report summarizing its assessment of all attempted foreign interference identified during the midterm elections.

The classified report will then be made available to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, all relevant ministers, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and “identified representatives of the parties with appropriate security clearances”.

Foreign interference

The implementation of the measures comes amid allegations of foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, which were revealed in multiple reports citing classified intelligence in late 2022 by Global News and The Globe and Mail.

All opposition parties have called on the government to launch a national public inquiry to investigate the allegations, but Ottawa has yet to do so.

Trudeau appointed former governor general David Johnston as special rapporteur on foreign election interference in March, but he resigned earlier this month.

Johnston resigned about a week after the opposition parties voted to pass a non-binding motion in the House of Commons calling for him to resign because of his past ties to the Trudeau family and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

Opposition leaders have been discussing over the past week who they want to take Johnston’s place as special rapporteur or who should be selected to lead a public inquiry into foreign interference.

The government has not guaranteed it will launch a public inquiry, but LeBlanc said earlier that “all options remain on the table”.