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Officials monitoring Canada’s federal election for foreign interference say they are focused on covert and deliberate efforts to interfere in the campaign — and that doesn’t include the public opinions shared by U.S. billionaire Elon Musk on social media.
This year’s general election is the first to be held since revelations of foreign interference efforts in past campaigns led to new safeguards and procedures to monitor for, and warn the public about, attempts to meddle in elections.While officials say they are monitoring attempts to sow discord through social media, they made clear in a briefing Monday there’s a difference between that and individual free expression — no matter how influential that individual may be.“Mr. Musk, or anyone else working under him, does not fall into the category of foreign interference,” Laurie-Anne Kempton, assistant secretary to the cabinet for communications at the Privy Council Office, told reporters in French. Allen Sutherland, assistant secretary to the cabinet for democratic institutions, added that although Musk has a “considerable following” in Canada and around the world, anything he posts online “is an expression of personal opinion.”“It’s definitely not clandestine, it’s very public by its very nature,” he said.
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“Canadians will have an opportunity to judge his or anyone else’s opinions as expressed throughout the election campaign, so our trust is with Canadians that they can separate what is truthful and what may not be truthful, and what should be listened to and what should be ignored.”Officials, however, said if there was evidence that Musk or any other foreign actor was manipulating social media algorithms to promote a particular message during the election, that those activities would be investigated.“If we see the markers of a foreign-backed and particularly state-backed campaign, we will flag that,” said Larisa Galzada, director-general of the cyber, critical technology and democratic resilience bureau at Global Affairs Canada.Musk, who is a prolific poster on the X platform he owns, has often weighed in on international politics — including in Canada — after using his influence to support U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign last year. He openly supported the far-right Alternative for Germany party in that country’s election last month, and has called for the defeat of Britain’s new Labour government. When former prime minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation in January, Musk expressed support for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and reposted a tweet from December 2024 in which he had called Trudeau “an insufferable tool.”
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Musk has not yet commented on new Liberal Leader Mark Carney since he was elected as party leader earlier this month, which also made him prime minister as head of the governing party.Musk — who serves as a senior advisor to Trump and is leading controversial job- and cost-cutting efforts within the U.S. government — has also echoed Trump’s attacks on Canada.He called Trudeau “governor,” an insult Trump has used in his calls to make Canada a U.S. state and repeated grievances about Canadian banking regulations.Trump has made his own opinion known in the lead-up to the Canadian election. He said last week he doesn’t “care” about who wins but that he may prefer a Liberal government, claiming they would be “easier to deal with” in trade negotiations, and dismissed Poilievre as “no friend of mine.” At a separate briefing Monday, chief electoral officer Stephanie Perrault said he was not aware of any specific threats coming from the U.S. but reiterated the position that stating an opinion in public is not considered a malicious act of interference.“We live in an open society, and that comes with receiving messages and hearing influence from people within Canada and abroad,” he said. “That is not contrary to our electoral process or the rules here in Canada.”Officials at Monday’s briefing included representatives of the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) task force that monitors elections for foreign interference and the Rapid Response Mechanism that works to identify and respond to foreign threats to democracies.
The SITE task force has overseen multiple federal byelections since 2023, when its mandate was expanded, as well as this year’s Liberal leadership race to replace Trudeau. Vanessa Lloyd, deputy director of operations at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said that while Canada remains a “relatively lower-priority target” for foreign cyber activity than other allies, it remains a “considerable” threat.“Generally speaking, we found that potential threat activities related to this year’s election are likely to differ from those overserved in past elections,” she said.“SITE assesses that despite increased public awareness of foreign interference, most threat actors remain likely to conduct threat activities, and have likely adapted their tradecraft to further conceal their foreign interference activity, making it even more challenging to detect.”Lloyd said there will be a greater use of artificial intelligence tools like generative deepfakes to try and influence voters, echoing a warning shared by the Communications Security Establishment early this month.China, India, Russia and Pakistan are among the foreign state actors most likely to try and exert their influence and promote their interests during the election, she added.Officials will monitor for coordinated and pervasive influence and interference campaigns and raise concerns when appropriate, and regular briefings on the threat landscape will be held throughout the election campaign. Threats will be flagged to an election integrity panel made up of senior deputy ministers — including from the public safety, justice and foreign affairs ministries and the national security and intelligence advisor to the prime minister — who will determine if the threat warrants a warning to voters.Kempton said the panel’s threshold for a public warning is very high, and considers whether it could by itself disrupt or influence the election’s outcome.“A public announcement could also inadvertently serve a foreign state’s goal to sow discord and discredit democracy,” she said.“I want to be very clear: The panel is not evaluating individual opinions or perspectives. They will be looking for instances of interference, disinformation and other malign actions, not legitimate public influence. For example, public figures stating their support for one candidate or another does not constitute interference, it is considered a personal opinion.“Foreign interference includes deliberate and covert activities by foreign groups, state actors, or individuals to advance their interests, often to the detriment of Canada’s national interests.”Sutherland said an example of a legitimate public warning was the SITE task force’s announcement last month, during the Liberal leadership race, that candidate Chrystia Freeland had been targeted by a Chinese-backed campaign of disparaging articles on WhatsApp.In that case, both the public and the Freeland campaign were warned of the influence operation, which was targeted toward Chinese-language voters and media channels on the platform.
