{"id":190242,"date":"2018-11-18T23:17:20","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T04:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=190242"},"modified":"2018-11-18T23:17:20","modified_gmt":"2018-11-19T04:17:20","slug":"next-canadian-federal-election-will-be-target-for-russian-meddling-sajjan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/11\/18\/next-canadian-federal-election-will-be-target-for-russian-meddling-sajjan\/","title":{"rendered":"Next Canadian federal election will be target for Russian meddling: Sajjan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cWe have taken this into account very seriously in our defence policy,\u201d Harjit Sajjan said in an interview with The Canadian Press. (File Photo<\/a>: Harjit Sajjan\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

HALIFAX \u2014 With a federal election less than a year away, Canada’s defence minister is warning voters they will be targeted by online cyber-attacks and fake news as Russia steps up its efforts to undermine western democracies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have taken this into account very seriously in our defence policy,\u201d Harjit Sajjan said in an interview with The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to further educate our citizens about the impact of fake news. No one wants to be duped by anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sajjan made the comments while attending a defence and security conference in Halifax, where experts, military officers and politicians representing democracies from around the world spent a great deal of time discussing cyber-warfare.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we stand up for human rights, and when we stand up … to nations like Russia who are going against the rules-based order … you become a target,\u201d Sajjan said, adding that Canada’s decision to protest Russia’s annexation of Crimea has also raised Russia’s ire.<\/p>\n

He said the Canadian government has a cyber-security plan that includes establishing the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security within the Communications Security Establishment, which is focused on collecting foreign signals intelligence.<\/p>\n

Rose Gottemoeller, deputy-secretary general of NATO, stressed that Russia is not the only country using the internet to spread disinformation, citing a NATO report released Sunday that drew attention to North Korea, China and Iran.<\/p>\n

The report, presented Sunday to a NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Halifax, was discussed by NATO’s science and technology committee.<\/p>\n

U.S. Democratic congresswoman Susan Davis told the committee that Russian interference continued in the early stages of the recent U.S. mid-term elections, although not on the scale seen during the 2016 election that saw Donald Trump elected president.<\/p>\n

Last year, Facebook said hundreds of dubious accounts, likely operated out of Russia, spent about $100,000 on some 3,000 ads about contentious issues such as LGBT rights, race, immigration and guns.<\/p>\n

Facebook later said an estimated 10 million people in the United States saw the ads.<\/p>\n

Gottemoeller, who previously served as undersecretary for international security at the U.S. State Department, said democracies have to be ready to defend themselves \u2014 on the battlefield or in cyberspace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a lot of creativity among the bad guys,\u201d she said in an interview Sunday.<\/p>\n

As an example, Gottemoeller pointed to the Canadian-led NATO Battle Group in Latvia, which has been subjected to a steady stream of fake news aimed at undermining the year-old mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russians are pumping out a lot of reports about misbehaviour of Canadian troops and how expensive the (battle group) is for Latvia,\u201d she said, adding that Canadian soldiers have taken a proactive role by letting local residents know why they are there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a great example of how Canada … has made a difference pushing back against disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pauline Neville-Jones, chairwoman of the U.K.-based Advisory Board to Cyber Security Challenge, said Russian operatives use online algorithms to distribute false stories that are aimed at sowing division and distrust of democratic institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the case of Canada, (the Russians) would find it very interesting to try to destabilize your relationship with the United States,\u201d said Neville-Jones, who was David Cameron’s national security adviser before he became prime minister of Britain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat gets at the sinews of western democracy. It gets at the sinews of NATO relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neville-Jones said the rise of social media has eroded the influence of traditional media sources, which has left citizens more susceptible to cyber-attacks. The best defence against fake news, she said, is to seek other news sources.<\/p>\n

She said there was plenty of evidence of online interference in the 2016 U.S. vote, particularly from the Russians.<\/p>\n

\u201cPropaganda … has been one of the things they’ve always done,\u201d Neville-Jones said. \u201cThey see international relations as a zero-sum game. If you’re losing, then I’m winning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HALIFAX \u2014 With a federal election less than a year away, Canada’s defence minister is warning voters they will be …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":87531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-neil-davidson","mauthors-the-canadian-press","mauthors-michael-macdonald","mauthors-keith-doucette"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}