Following a recent MLI event discussing Russia’s challenge to North American and European security, MLI Senior Fellow Marcus Kolga joined CPAC’s Perspective with Alison Smith to discuss Russian disinformation activities as well as what they could mean for the 2019 federal election.
“There were attempts to meddle in the 2015 federal election,” says Kolga, highlighting how Russian disinformation activities are already present in Canada. “We know that there have been ongoing social media attacks by trolls and bots going back a decade against critics of the Putin regime.”
“We can expect more disinformation coming out in the coming months.”
In terms of what Canada should do, Kolga argues that it is time to step back and examine the logic of Russia’s disinformation campaigns. While in the 2016 presidential election, Putin had a preferred candidate, Kolga says that in other places Putin has “tried to sow chaos.”
“In the Canadian context, in the upcoming election, what he’s going to try to do is undermine our democracy. He wants to turn elements of the left and the right against each other because he runs an [authoritarian state] and he wants to demonstrate that democracy doesn’t work.”
The full episode of Perspective with Alison Smith may be watched here.
