This article originally appeared in the Hill Times.
By Pamela Wallin, Stanley Kutcher, and Marcus Kolga, September 23, 2024
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted two employees of Russia’s state propaganda platform RT for paying $10-million to a company owned by two Canadians to create and amplify Kremlin-aligned content in Canada and the United States. Among the collaborators were prominent Canadian far-right influencers with substantial followings.
The purpose of these Kremlin-directed activities is to sow division in our society, influence political processes, and weaken our democratic institutions. This indictment reveals the alarming extent of Kremlin influence operations within our borders facilitated by Canadians who should face scrutiny and accountability.
It’s no surprise that Canadian far-right and far-left extremists are involved in Kremlin information operations—after all, far-left activists and academics from this country have routinely appeared on RT and collaborate with Russian think tanks. However, the central role played by Canadians in this operation underscores a dangerous vulnerability: our failure to deter such activities has exposed our democracy to well-orchestrated and well-funded ongoing manipulation. The $10-million uncovered likely represents just a small fraction of a much larger Kremlin operation. Canadian authorities must swiftly and fully investigate these activities, as well as the broader web of academics, activists, and columnists who engage with Russian state media and think tanks on behalf of Russia.
In 2022, the federal government banned Russian-state media from public airwaves, and sanctioned entities like RT and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Valdai Club. These organizations play a key role in Russia’s information warfare carried out by senior Kremlin advisers. Official Kremlin documents obtained by the FBI demonstrate that Russia’s goal is to incite international conflict, and destabilize societies allied with the U.S. through propaganda that manipulates public opinion and erodes support for Ukraine.
This strategy involves exploiting social media, aligned influencers, and falsehoods to escalate internal tensions in allied nations. Russian narratives target Western audiences by blaming NATO and the U.S. for the war in Ukraine, and urging governments to focus on domestic issues rather than support Ukraine. Disturbingly, the Russian government has identified 2,800 potential international influencers to spread its narratives, while it simultaneously monitors critics of its policies.
These operations are politically agnostic: they target extremes on any issue, exploiting and manipulating various ideological perspectives and political biases. Their objective is clear: divide societies, subvert democracies, and advance Russia’s interests by using domestic influencers and third-party actors to mask the Kremlin’s involvement.
The FBI’s revelations confirm what some of us have warned about for years: Canada is not immune to Russian influence operations. The presence of Canadians at the heart of an RT-funded platform proves that our naive belief otherwise leaves us dangerously exposed to Kremlin influence operations. Those Canadians who knowingly collaborate with authoritarian regimes like Russia, China, and Iran to undermine our democracy and the international rule of law, and must be held accountable.
The Canadian government must urgently investigate those named in the U.S. indictment, and determine whether their services to Russia violated our laws. Canadian law enforcement and intelligence agencies should also probe Canadians who knowingly collaborate with sanctioned Russian media and think tanks to promote Russian propaganda. Allowing these individuals to operate with impunity risks compromising our democracy.
This is not to stifle valid and essential differences of opinion. This is to address malignant actors who knowingly weaponize data, and promote the interests of Russian autocracy to the detriment of our social contract and its safeguarding institutions.
Additionally, Canadians who have consumed content from these toxic platforms should be vigilant about how their views may have been manipulated by foreign authoritarians and their Canadian collaborators. To assist us in that, all Canadians must be fully informed about the nature, type, and extent of this malignant Russian influence.
We have started to acknowledge and address the serious threat of Chinese influence operations targeting Canadians. By failing to address Kremlin data and influence operations, our information environment will remain vulnerable to manipulation by hostile actors, jeopardizing the cohesion of our society. To safeguard our democracy, we must hold to account and deter those who seek to undermine it and prevent them—along with their collaborators—from violating the sovereignty of our information space. And we need to support all Canadians in helping them better understand the sources and intent behind the pro-Kremlin information that they may believe and inadvertently share.
It’s ever more difficult for consumers of news to separate facts from fiction, never mind deliberate disinformation. It means we have a lot more work to do.
Saskatchewan Senator Pamela Wallin is with the Canadian Senators Group.
Nova Scotia Senator Stanley Kutcher is with the Independent Senators Group.
Marcus Kolga is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and founder of DisinfoWatch.
