Canada Announces Taskforce to Fight Foreign Election Meddling

Canada announced Wednesday the creation of an emergency task force to fight disinformation and foreign meddling in elections, as well as funds to teach voters how to identify malicious posts.

The move comes ahead of parliamentary polls in October where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal party will seek to hold on to its majority.

"What we're announcing today is a plan to protect the integrity of Canada's 2019 federal election," Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told a press conference, flanked by Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan and Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould.

It includes Can$7 million (US$5.3 million) for workshops and public awareness campaigns to increase Canadians' online literacy and warn about tactics used to deceive voters.

A new Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force that includes Canada's federal police, foreign ministry, electronic eavesdropping agency and spy agency will also analyze social media activity and disrupt attacks.

Senior officials would be required to inform the public during an election campaign of specific threats or attacks, as well as coordinate responses with allies.

At a meeting in June in Quebec, the Group of Seven industrialized nations created a working group to protect liberal democracies from foreign interference in the wake of Russian attacks in the 2016 U.S. election and tampering in other countries.

Gould noted that Twitter, Google and Facebook have been used to spread disinformation.

She has been meeting with executives from social media companies, seeking commitments from them to implement strict safeguards against abuse of their platforms, similar to those adopted in the EU.

"We see that the social media companies, while they are starting to take some responsibility, they still have a ways to go," she said.

A government briefing document said Ottawa "expects these companies to take concrete actions to help safeguard this fall's election," including maintaining a registry of partisan advertising during pre-election and election periods.