The federal government has introduced new measures to protect against potential foreign interference in several byelections being held between June 19 and June 24, according to Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc.
Voters will head to the polls on June 19 for
byelections in the Quebec riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Westmount, the riding of Oxford in southern Ontario, the Winnipeg South Centre riding, and Portage–Lisgar, another Manitoba riding.
The fifth byelection will take place in the Alberta riding of Calgary Heritage on June 24.
LeBlanc’s department says the
new measures include “enhanced monitoring and assessing” of potential threats by the Security and Intelligence Threats
Task Force, which is comprised of CSIS, the RCMP, Global Affairs Canada, and the Communications Security Establishment.
The task force’s assessments will be given to the Deputy Minister Committee on Intelligence Response, which will then “stand ready to brief and advise ministers” whose mandates include combating foreign interference, the press release says.
LeBlanc’s department also says that “lines of communications” have been opened up between the task force and “designated representatives of political parties to ensure engagement should it become necessary over the course of the by-election period.”
It further says that the task force will write both a classified and an unclassified report summarizing of its assessment of any attempts at foreign interference identified during the by-elections.
The classified report will then be made available to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, any relevant ministers, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and the “identified representatives of the parties with appropriate security clearances.”
Foreign Interference
The introduction of the measures come amid
allegations of foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections revealed in multiple reports citing secret intelligence information by Global News and The Globe and Mail beginning in late 2022.
All opposition parties have called on the government to establish a national public inquiry to investigate the allegations, but Ottawa is yet to do so.
Trudeau appointed former governor general David Johnston as the special rapporteur on foreign election interference in March, but he
resigned earlier this month.
Johnston stepped down about a week after the opposition parties voted to pass a non-binding
motion in the House of Commons calling on him to resign because of his past connections to the Trudeau family and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.
Opposition leaders have now been
consulting with each other over the past week on who they want to take Johnston’s place as special rapporteur or who should be selected to lead a public inquiry on foreign interference.
The government has not guaranteed that it will call a public inquiry, but LeBlanc
previously said that “all options remain on the table.”
