Wesley Wark: Social media, disinfo and foreign interference in the era of Trump

Our recent foreign interference report offers some — but only some — useful advice on how to handle newly emerging threats to Canada.

By: Wesley Wark

The findings of the 16-month public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada’s elections and democratic processes, released late last month, threaten to be swallowed up by the urgencies surrounding a suddenly fraught Canada-U.S. relationship.

One way to make sure this doesn’t happen is to be clear about the ways in which the inquiry weaves two major threads between past foreign interference activities and future threats, with implications for dealing with an antagonistic, America First administration headed by Donald Trump.

The first thread involves the inquiry’s critique of past failures by the Canadian government to be sufficiently transparent, and to engage in useful communications about the foreign interference threat with Canadians. Keeping Canadians in the dark bred, in the view of Commissioner Marie-Josee Hogue, many bad outcomes, including undermining, for no good reason, the faith of some Canadians in the integrity of our democratic system.

It is no stretch to say that the current government (and the next one) could easily and dangerously fall into the same trap of too much secrecy and silence over approaches to Canada-U.S. relations, with potentially the same undermining effect.

The Canadian government will need to get very good, very fast, at providing a clear, evidence-based picture of the nature of our security partnership with the U.S., including its many moving parts, whether with respect to NORAD, intelligence sharing, border security, the long-fostered interoperability of our militaries, or the interconnectedness of the defence-industrial base in both countries. The prime minister’s press conference on February 2nd, warning of Canadian counter-tariffs, and reminding both a domestic and U.S. audience of some facts about Canada’s alliance contributions and border security, was a good start, but only that. Without sustained transparency and an effective communications strategy, Canada could fall prey to a tsunami of misleading U.S. claims.

This leads us to the second connecting thread between past and future dangers of foreign interference. The inquiry final report warned of the explosion of state-sponsored disinformation in the social media space in particular, calling it an “existential” threat to our democracy.

Disinformation is an attack vector of foreign interference. Consider the alignment in definitions. The inquiry drew on the CSIS Act to define foreign interference as involving “clandestine, deceptive or threatening activity by a foreign state, or those acting on a state’s behalf, that is detrimental to the interests of Canada.” (p. 21). It used the CSE/CCCS definition of disinformation as involving “false information that is intended to manipulate, cause damage, or guide people, organizations and countries in the wrong direction.” The definitions lock.

The Foreign Interference Inquiry drew attention to the activities of the People’s Republic of China and India as the two most prominent threat actors and described both countries as users of disinformation campaigns to achieve their objectives. Nowhere in the inquiry’s report do we come across any mention of the United States as a source of disinformation threats. Admittedly, Trump’s election victory came at the very end of the life cycle of the inquiry; the notion that the United States might rank among leading perpetrators of foreign interference targeting Canada would have been seen as wild-eyed when the Commission began its work in September 2023.

The attention paid to disinformation by the inquiry is one of its greatest strengths. But does that attention translate into recommendations that might serve as guidance in the new age of Trumpian tariff threats and high-volume, anti-Canadian information operations?

The answer is — a bit of yes and much no. On the yes side, one of the most important recommendations is to urge the creation of a government open-source intelligence (OSINT) unit to monitor for “misinformation and disinformation that could impact Canadian democratic processes” (recommendation 11). Such an open-source intelligence entity would be able to turn its attention to U.S. foreign interference in the Canadian information space and to the actions of major social media platforms such as Elon Musk’s X. Monitoring could provide the evidentiary basis for public warnings, selective counter-narratives, or diplomatic push back.

But on the no side, there is not much depth or likely traction in other recommendations, whether they involve efforts to require news and social media organizations to label altered content (generated by AI and the use of deep fakes), or the suggestion that maybe someone could come up with a “publicly available tool to help citizens verify whether digital content is fabricated or altered.” A disinformation magic wand!

The twin lessons of the FI Inquiry are probably not what anyone expected at the outset of its investigations — enhance government transparency about national security threats and focus on disinformation. But even if the inquiry doesn’t have many answers for the age of Trump 2.0, it does point the way, as foreign interference takes another, potentially nasty, turn.

Dr. Wesley Wark is a national security expert and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

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