CSIS Documents At Odds With India Calling Allegations Of Interference In Canada’s Elections ‘Baseless’

Documents from Canada’s spy agency, made public at the inquiry looking into foreign interference in Canadian elections, named India and Pakistan as two governments involved in attempts to influence the 2019 and 2021 votes.

It comes as the government of India has already denied allegations that it interfered in the last two Canadian elections.

“We strongly reject all such baseless allegations of Indian interference in Canadian elections,” said India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal in a statement from a Feb. 8 press briefing.

“It is not Government of India’s policy to interfere in democratic processes of other countries. In fact, quite on the reverse, it is Canada which has been interfering in our internal affairs. We have been raising this issue regularly with them. We continue to call on Canada to take effective measures to address our core concerns.”

The documents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) accused India of interference in 2021, when it had “intent to interfere and likely conducted clandestine activities,” including the use of an Indian government proxy agent in Canada.

The ongoing public inquiry on foreign election interference has shifted focus to what is considered the second biggest threat: India. Intelligence officials testified that India targets a number of ‘high-priority individual races’ rather than the election as a whole.

CSIS alleges that in 2021, the Indian government’s foreign interference activities “were centred on a small number of electoral districts.” The government of India targeted those ridings, CSIS wrote, because there was a perception by India that “a portion of Indo-Canadian voters were sympathetic to the Khalistani movement or pro-Pakistan political stances.”

The reports all bear notes of caution about the summaries being possibly uncorroborated, single-sourced or incomplete. CSIS director David Vigneault told the public inquiry that intelligence is not necessarily fact and it may require further investigation.

CBC reached out to the High Commission of Pakistan on Friday morning, but has not received a response.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday the government has continued to take steps to protect Canada from foreign influence in elections.

Responding to documents made public at the inquiry looking into interference in Canadian elections, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that both security and government mechanisms have known for ‘many years that many different countries’ attempt to interfere with Canadian institutions.

“We have known for many, many years that many different countries take an interest in engaging in Canadian institutions and sometimes influencing, sometimes interfering, in the work of Canadian institutions,” he said.

“I can assure people that we will continue to do everything necessary to prevent interference from whatever country it comes from.”

Alleged interference could have multiple goals

Wesley Wark, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, said the intelligence summaries made public by the inquiry suggest the alleged Indian interference would have had two main goals.

“One is that India is interested in trying to find ways to kind of support its own message within the Canadian political space,” he said in an interview with CBC News.

“But the other, and perhaps more worrying, is that the indications are that India has tried to intimidate or suppress voters in diaspora communities — particularly Sikh Canadians — to kind of take them out of the political game if they can, and sort of suppress their voice.”

Wark also said it was a big surprise that CSIS was seemingly so concerned about Pakistan that it executed a “threat-reduction measure” in 2019. He said that could encompass a range of actions.

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“That could be something as simple as as posting a marked police car outside a known threat actor’s residence or place of work. It could be something like providing information to a foreign diplomat to say, ‘Look, we know what you’re up to, please stop.'”