OTTAWA, ON (July 14, 2026):
The Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s rapidly growing website attracts about 100,000 readers per month. Canadians come to us for the best expert analysis and commentary on the issues shaping our national conversation and public policy. In fact, our website is so good that Canada’s adversaries wanted their own version …
Early in June 2026, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute was informed by Canadian security and law enforcement officials that an organization linked to a hostile foreign intelligence service had cloned our website. And not just a few pages. They mirrored our very large site essentially in its entirety.
We had every reason to believe that this organization was using its mock MLI website and associated infrastructure to, among other things, recruit Canadians to supply sensitive and even classified information by offering research and other contracts that appeared to be from a reputable and prestigious Canadian think tank. We also believe this to be related to recent warnings issued by Five Eyes intelligence services about the alleged use of social media to recruit just such unsuspecting sources of intelligence in various countries around the world.
The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, as well as many of our fellows, have often been targeted by foreign regimes. In 2023, Russia’s “Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media” attempted lawfare to have our website taken down. We’ve been formally sanctioned by the Kremlin and blacklisted by Beijing. We’re on the radar of Canada’s enemies because we stand up to their abuses and attempts to undermine our democracy. We’ve stood up to Canada’s enemies and defended Canadian sovereignty when officialdom was complaisant or silent.
We take it as a compliment that our adversaries continue to take aim at us. We’re not scared, and we have every intention of continuing our work to call out threats to Canada.
While we are quite prepared to expose ourselves to such risks as a price of working to protect Canada’s interests, we want our readers and followers to be safe. Please be aware of the fraudulent misrepresentation occurring and be on guard against any unsolicited communication allegedly coming from MLI.
The fraudulent website address was www.macdonallaurier.com. However, after MLI discovered the spoofed URL, it was suddenly deactivated and now leads to a broken link.
Those who know what they are doing and who have strong cybersecurity defences may visit the fraudulent cloned website via the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20260605135913/https://macdonallaurier.com/ but please use caution if doing so.
Our website address is precisely macdonaldlaurier.ca and our emails end with @macdonaldlaurier.ca. Any variation of this is fraudulent and should be immediately reported to us and to your email provider.
For further information, media are invited to contact:
Skander Belouizdad
Senior Media Relations Officer
(613) 482-8327 x111
Skander.belouizdad@macdonaldlaurier.ca
