“Navigating the World of Foreign Interference Disinformation Harms to Our Democracy and Transnational Repression Effects” — part 2
a primer on the elaborate obfuscation that is the government response to foreign interference
“NSICOP, a body consisting of appointed Parliamentarians, chose to focus instead on the FI threat to Parliamentarians and made some sensational allegations about members of Parliament being witting or semi-witting accomplices of foreign interference schemes. These allegations were essentially dismissed in the PIFI final report. None of the recommendations advanced by NSICOP involved responses to transnational repression or disinformation campaigns, though it did draw attention to failures of transparency on the part of the government.” — Welsley Wark, MIGS Report/Playbook
So, reader. The quote from the MIGS Report doesn’t age well, in light of the video of former police officer and MP for Markham-Unionville that recently surfaced. It’s fairly clear, no interpretation needed on my part to help you understand what took place here, reader. Go ahead and listen and think for yourself. So, it would seem the sensational claim = denial that our parliament has not suffered infiltration vis a vis FI.
Again, go read my article about Chiang.
Reader, I don’t want to beat a dead horse. Reader, I loathe beating dead horses. Reader, I really HATE repeating myself. It irritates me, reader. Muh. However, we can all plainly see the trail of breadcrumbs around Paul Chiang and his adventures in counselling kidnapping of a HK dissident named Joe Tay. Please get glasses if you can’t see that trail. Seriously. Not sensationalist.
Here’s a wee clip from Mureka AI because that sensationalist line in this MIGS report irritates me and it deserved to be angry-rapped.
Ok, musical interlude over.
Here’s a quote from Sam Cooper’s latest article on Allegations of Chinese Voter Suppression in the 2021 federal election.
In a public statement, a SITE official said the task force is aware of ongoing efforts by authoritarian regimes to target dissidents, critics, journalists, and other members of diaspora communities. “Please remember two things. First, your vote is secret and secure—it will not be possible to find out who you vote for. And second, it is an offense to threaten someone so that they change their vote,” the official said Monday. — From The Bureau, April 2, 2025
Anyway, moving on to the remainder of the MIGS Report.
As I wrote yesterday in part 1, diaspora communities found disappointing the final report of the Hogue inquiry. Madame Justice tabled her PIFI multi-volume report in January and critics found it lacking teeth. Blah blah blah information. No concrete solutions offered, and barely a an effort made to integrate the information into a form Canadians could digest and understand. The Globe and Mail wrote a piece about this, you can access the gift link here.
“Justice Hogue just demonstrates that she and her team do not fully understand the extent and threat that such parliamentarians pose to Canadian democracy,” Friends of Hong Kong said. “Worst, it is apparent that Canadians should not expect there would be any serious consequences for such parliamentarians.” — Chase and Fife, G&M, 29.01.2025
Reader, did you get that? Read it again until you do get it — “… it is apparent that Canadians should not expect there would be any serious consequences for such parliamentarians.” As you and I and the rest of Canadians sit here and wonder whether Paul Chiang will face any consequences for his criminal behaviour and transnational repression, the Hogue Inquiry has already downplayed the concerns expressed by the communities being targeted by Beijing. The body of work, including reports and briefings, fails to address ordinary Canadians and targeted communities in terms of offering real solutions for the ongoing campaigns of transnational repression (TNR) taking place here on the ground. Wark concedes this point in his MIGS playbook for Canadians, at least.
As we have seen, transnational repression can become submerged in broader outlooks and policies on foreign interference. Too often even literal references to diaspora communities and to transnational repression are missing. — Wark, MIGS Report/Playbook
Reader, we should feel grateful that the Hogue Inquiry1 at least drew attention to a major vehicle of TNR, Digital Disinformation Operations (DDO). Oh, okay. Sarcasm.
Disinformation campaigns are structured information operations conducted by a foreign state actor and/or their proxies in an effort to manipulate the information environment of a target state or population. They are conducted clandestinely and deceptively and involve the deliberate circulation of fake news and falsehoods. The element of clandestinity is important because it involves an effort to cloak the origins of such campaigns and heighten their impact on a target information space.
Digital disinformation campaigns operate with the benefit of access to a proliferating universe of social media platforms, some of which can be state-influenced and many of which have few to no controls on content. — Wark, MIGS Report/Playbook
Anyone who spends time on political social media has seen DDOs in operation. In fact the largest most successful DDO we see involves Israel, targeted by Hamas, Turkey, Iran, likely also China. Successful because the mainstream media and legislators of every level of governance in Canada have pretty much bought into the DDO, having embrace the Disinformation as fact because it aligns with their political bias about Israel, Judaism, and Jews in general. It’s that easy in Canada, we as a nation lack a serious and rigorous commitment to facts and reality based politics. Our policy makers have chosen to let political partisan sensitivities drive the national security and intelligence bus. Currently we are on a bus to FI and TNR hell.
I’m told by some insufferable Substack Elites that using AI generated images in your writing causes people to lose respect for your writing. Naturally, IDGAF what anyone thinks, and being a rebellious Bad Hijabi, I thought I would throw in an AI generated image at this point. Mwahahaha.
Let’s consider Disinformation now.
Pop quiz. What’s Disinformation? Disinformation refers to false information that intends to manipulate or obfuscate or mislead. Remember MISDISMAL, from yesterday, in part 1? “Think of the acronym MISDISMAL. Misinformation refers to false information not intended to cause harm. Disinformation refers to false information that intends to manipulate or obfuscate or mislead. Malinformation refers to information that originates from truth and gets exaggerated in ways that can cause harm.”
In the MIGS Report, Wark mentions a number of factors related to DDOs that’s provide hostile foreign entities the pathway for FI. They involve understanding the target audience and access to that audience, use of state resources, and weaponisation of technology + social media.
Authoritarian states are best positioned to wage effective large scale DDOs
Domestic surveillance and censorship assists authoritarian states in their narrative management
Careful examination of the political environment of the target state facilitates the strategic targeting of the audience
Vulnerable overseas diaspora make the best targets for hostile actors waging DDOs
Leveraging nationalist loyalty against dissidents within diaspora communities becomes an integral part of the DDO
Danger to family members remaining in the hostile state plays a key role in the perpetration of TNR
DDOs manipulate information consumers by preying on individual confirmation biases
DDOs distort existing information and amplify partial truths
DDOs focus on volumes of information, channels of delivery, and creating a perception of credibility
What’s interesting about these sensationalist claims made by Justice Hogue (you see what I did there, reader) lies in the fact that they mash distinct concepts together into some progressive goulash. Wark has some pushback on this, which I have summarized in point form below.
Foreign versus domestic Disinformation shouldn’t be lumped together
No evidence that Information Manipulation (ie as assessed against our definitions of Misinformation or Malinformation)
PIFI failed to deliver any discussion of information manipulation.
Mashing Misinformation with Disinformation muddies the waters
Misinformation is a function of any free discourse in an open and democratic society — government has no place in monitoring misinformation, such government overreach invites authoritarianism
Disinformation is deliberately weaponised by a hostile foreign entity to meet a particular political goal. How to monitor?
Hogue’s recommendations include throwing more money at media, media hygiene programs, mandating the determination and labeling of “altered content”, and tools to help people detect fakes.
These are questionable from a policy perspective and they’re insufficient to address the problem. Remember, reader, yesterday I did give you some pointers on how you can use existing digital technology to detect fakes and to identify misleading claims made by rage baiters and engagement farmers. Yesterday I forgot to mention the existence of a variety of online AI image detection tools. They work in varying degrees of efficacy and accuracy, I recommend using a few to verify your results. You can find them by Googling “AI image detection”.
Ultimately you do have access to a plethora of resources which you can use to help you detect fake news. One good rule to observe for yourself when you consume information is trust nothing, verify everything, and be suspicious when you come across any piece of information or claim made that triggers a strong negative reaction in you and others. Things that make you mad or upset typically exist to do just that. Propaganda wants to hijack you from thinking critically and clearly, that’s the whole point. Guard your brain from brain-worms.
One thing I want to add here is to remind readers of all the digital tools at your disposal. Image Reverse Search, for example. I use Google’s Image Reverse Search to search images. This tells me whether an image might be an AI (if there non attribution or credited photographer, or if the only source of the image is the X post where you found it). It tells me whether an image is indeed what the source claims, or whether it’s something appropriated from the past and repurposed (in the Hamas propaganda campaign, cyber actors frequently used images from the Syrian conflict to discredit Israel and attack the Jewish diaspora).
Generally, when you come across an image posted by an engagement farmer claiming something controversial, I recommend readers save the image and use Image Reverse Search to verify the claim. Remember confirmation bias is not your friend. Verify claims made by engagement farmers and rage baiters and influencers. It’s really as simple as Googling the item. Or of verifying and corroborating with various media.
For example, there are several sources of critical and reliable Israeli media and investigative journalism, Google Translate works fairly well with Hebrew, and a rich tapestry of OSINT exists to help you make informed decisions and combat the ongoing campaign of Disinformation waged by Hamas and related entities. Living in a multicultural society means familiarising oneself with international news media, and knowing the biases of various outlets.
Be your own fact checker. It’s your brain, guard it. You don’t just put any old piece of crap in your mouth, so why would you treat your brain any differently?
Finally, beware AI, sometimes it hallucinates, sometimes it gets details wrong. Grok has proven quite reliable, however, it lies to the human using the AI to validate and verify the information Grok gives you. Yes, Grok can give you a big whack of information in 12 seconds about Brookfield Asset Management or Qatar Investment Authority or The Economist Group. And yes, it lies to you to Google fact checker the stuff your Grok AI research assistant provided you. — Bad Hijabi, April 1, 2025
The MIGS Report/Playbook moves onto attribution of DDOs. Government bears the responsibility for monitoring and detecting Disinformation. Indeed, ideally, NatSec falls to the state to manage. What happens, though, when the state itself participates in its on DDOs? Can Canadians really trust a government that’s implemented a tyrannical policy of Sex Denialism it calls Gender Affirmation to take care of their NatSec and FI and TNR concerns? Can we trust a government which hurdles misconduct charges and then fires licensed professionals for tweets that state men aren’t women? Reader, I cannot.
If the government has a responsibility to "detect, deter and counter" foreign interference, that responsibility must be extended to dealing with digital Fl and to the very real prospect that digital foreign interference will be used as a tool of transnational repression.
Dealing with disinformation is fundamentally, but not solely, a responsibility of government.
Government national security and intelligence agencies possess unique tools to detect disinformation and to understand the strategic objectives that might be behind such campaigns. — Wark, MIGS Report/Playbook
Fortunately, the government has developed some foundational capacities for detecting disinformation campaigns, based in the creation of the "Rapid Response Mechanism," that emerged out of Canadian-led G7 recommendations from the 2018 G7 leaders summit. The RRM really first came to public attention during the Foreign Interference inquiry because of its role as a member of the SITE (Security and Intelligence Threat to Elections) Task Force … There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that the work of the RRM remains relatively unknown to a wider Canadian audience, including to diaspora communities, that RRM announcements are recent phenomenon and quantitatively are few and far between, and that little effort is made to ensure that they have a public impact. Issuing an occasional public statement is simply not enough. — Wark, MIGS Report/Playbook
Detection. Attribution. Deterrence.
Detection of DDOs sounds fabulous. It’s toothless without attribution, that is, identifying a source. All that sounds great, too, only it falls flat without deterrence. Currently Canada, which can barely recognise the DDOs and the TNR they support, lacks strong deterrence strategies. Frankly, reader, Canada lacks the political will to implement and enforce deterrence strategies.
Wark cites the work of Postdoctoral Fellow Shelly Ghai Bajaj, and references a podcast episode hosted by Marie Lamensch, Global Affairs Officer at the Montreal Institute for Global Security, noting what I have previously mentioned (yesterday, part 1) regarding targeted diaspora communities having full awareness of the DDOs in effect, and the reality that it’s fallen to the diaspora communities themselves to engineer their own responses to counter the FI propaganda and effectively address the TNR.
Moving on like a herd of turtles.
What role does the NGO entity play in detection of DDOs and in helping to engineer solutions to assist targeted individuals and diaspora communities in combatting false narratives that fuel and and facilitate TNR? Wark rightly reminds readers that, whilst they don’t have access to government intelligence, NGOs do have access to intelligence from the diaspora. In 2022 Freedom House published a case study on TNR in Canada. You can access it below.
This on-the-ground intelligence, OSINT, can often surpass the quality and richness of whatever intelligence the government can provide. Often independent OSINT investigators and researchers have discovered the important piece of information that breaks a case wide open. Such is the case with the story of the PRC in Canada — a number of dedicated individuals devote their lives to tracking PRC proxies and their activities, simply because when left to one’s own devices, one finds a way to manage. The government’s obvious disinterest in the safety and security of its target diaspora communities has caused those communities to engineer their own remedial responses. Laws don’t enforce themselves, as the Co-founder of Democracy Watch Duff Conacher says.
As reflected in Canada's security policies, authorities at the highest levels are aware of risks posed by foreign governments to the country's multiethnic population and to its institutions, and sovereignty.
However, mechanisms to report individual threats are inadequate and people targeted by transnational repression in Canada have been disappointed by the lack of response from law enforcement … In general, Canada's migration system is both welcoming and well-equipped to avoid undue influence from foreign governments that may be pursuing people across borders. However, in the past, Canadian authorities have made agreements to cooperate with governments that perpetrate transnational repression, granting them access to people living in the country in exchange for short-term policy benefits. —Freedom House, Canada Case Study on TNR, 2022
Reader, as an aside — I wonder out loud how the government’s apparent appeasement or enablement of Islamist regime states and its tolerance of Islamist extremists fits in with their policy on Islamophobia? Surely allowing hostile foreign entities access to dissident Muslims must meet the threshold of Islamophobic hate? One wonders, generally, how a government so fixated with the political narrative of anti-hate and anti-racism has such a weak and lazy approach to protecting its pet minority diaspora population.
Citizen Lab is another organization that has studied TNR and its impact on target diaspora communities. You can access their 2022 report (No. 151) below.
One study with Iranian journalists and activists in exile observed how the Iranian government sought to disable the dissidents’ “voice.” This silencing effort was easily delivered through digital tactics, which activists interpreted as a message from Iranian security agencies that they were being surveilled. While these tactics may not always stop the work of activists, they do “create pressure and additional costs, as activists are forced to consider their online behavior and protect their communications.” Repression also sends a message to other members of the diaspora that they should refrain from engaging in similar behaviour. Further, self-censorship leads “victims of transnational repression to purposefully avoid alerting local law enforcement to threats to their personal safety.” Repression undermines the capacity of the diaspora to engage in independent journalism, curbs the ability of universities to ensure free speech, and makes public demonstrations in host countries a dangerous activity.
Family members who reside in the country of origin may also be caught in the practice.
Authoritarian regimes threaten and detain exiled dissidents’ family members within their borders to send a warning to halt anti-regime activity abroad. The Iranian regime, for instance, has paired threats against dissidents with threats against or the detention of family members who reside within Iran. Iranian activists have sought to protect their relatives back home by keeping them “at arm's length.” Dissidents are forced to either silence themselves or cut ties with their family members in order to protect them. — Citizen Lab, Report No. 151
But the only way to guarantee, to make sure that I receive the necessary information is to give me an in-person briefing or over a secure line, if necessary, on any issue or priority issue. — Justin Trudeau to the Hogue Inquiry, April 10th, 2024
A better bargain is needed, states Wark, when it comes to helping Canadians combat TNR. What would that better bargain entail? Increased transparency, better engagement at the community level + with ordinary Canadians, and improved enforcement. There’s no magical wand we can wave to solve the problem of TNR and to nip FI in the bud. However, there is a requirement to demonstrate serious intent to detect, deter and counter in a proportional and democratic manner, the threats involved.
During the PIFI, the country heard Trudeau tell the panel he didn’t read briefings and relied on his staff to tell him what they thought he should know. I have recorded the relevant clip of his testimony for you to hear, it’s in French, (see above), so reader, cope with that — Canada is a bilingual country. You can find the English translation transcript of this particular part of Justin Trudeau’s testimony in Volume 15 of the Final Report, at the bottom of page 162. Trudeau has certainly demonstrated a disturbing nonchalance regarding serious issues.
The government seems uninterested in taking the threat of FI and the dangers of TNR seriously. Our leadership has an arrogant contempt for the public it serves, the past decade has shown us that our leadership truly believes that we serve it.
You can find Part 1 Below.
I use the acronym PIFI interchangeably with Hogue Inquiry in my writing, these two terms refer to the same thing, the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference lead by Madame Justice Hogue