Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore - When (not) to freak out about foreign interference and democracy (With Stephanie Carvin)

00:00:00.000 do you sometimes feel crazy explaining this stuff a hundred percent and sometimes like a weirdo

00:00:05.760 right oh my god completely like sometimes i'll point out a dog whistle and i feel like that

00:00:10.880 that meme of the guy with like from uh it's always sunny in philadelphia where he's like

00:00:15.440 oh yeah and pointing at the yarn on the wall that's what it feels like because the reality

00:00:19.760 is is the conspiracies themselves are like that so to be able to explain how we got here like

00:00:24.880 that's why they do it in that way because it's really hard you can you can brush it off and and

00:00:29.360 That's the point of a dog whistle, is only some people hear it as intended, right?

00:00:38.200 Hello, I'm Rachel Gilmore, your least favorite person's least favorite journalist.

00:00:42.420 Welcome to Bubble Pop, a weekly show where I break down the biggest headlines so you

00:00:46.780 don't have to doomscroll.

00:00:48.140 Then we dig deeper into something juicy that you should know about.

00:00:51.340 In this episode, we've got national security expert Stephanie Carvin on the show.

00:00:55.200 We're going to talk about how we should actually understand all this chatter about foreign

00:00:59.640 interference and what to make of the threats to democracy coming from our own backyard.

00:01:04.620 But first, the news.

00:01:06.280 We've passed the halfway mark of the federal election campaign and things are heating up.

00:01:10.500 So I'm going to devote this week's roundup to talking about the headlines related to

00:01:13.880 that.

00:01:14.260 Let's dive in.

00:01:17.300 The huge dark shadow looming over the campaign continues to be Trump's tariffs.

00:01:22.640 He's been all over the place this week.

00:01:24.520 And there's a decent chance, as I always say, that things will change by the time you hear this.

00:01:29.520 But as things stand now, Canada is still dealing with those border security tariffs on a ton of

00:01:34.360 goods, except for the ones that are customer compliant, as well as tariffs on our energy and

00:01:38.980 potash and on our auto steel and aluminum. And while most of the rest of the world, except China,

00:01:44.460 got a break from those sweeping 10% tariffs that Trump announced last week that, you know,

00:01:49.000 sent the stock market into a spiral because the tariffs on Canada weren't those 10% tariffs,

00:01:54.280 ours, are still in place. What the hell, man? Anyways, leaders made a point of mentioning this

00:01:59.480 on the campaign trail, with Carney announcing on Thursday that he's actually suspending his

00:02:03.980 campaign for a third time to head to Ottawa, where he's going to hold meetings about the tariffs.

00:02:08.880 Meanwhile, Polyev has been speaking out about Trump's tariffs more strongly, saying on Thursday

00:02:12.780 that he condemns Trump for keeping the tariffs on Canada in place while lifting them on so many

00:02:17.340 others. We have to address once again yesterday's historic mistreatment of Canada by President

00:02:24.740 Trump. I condemn President Trump for keeping the tariffs on Canada, all while he offered a 90-day

00:02:33.160 pause on tariffs for dozens of other countries. It remains a mystery why the president treats

00:02:40.680 Canada worse than dozens of other faraway countries who are not America's best friend.

00:02:46.360 Despite Polyev's effort to kind of pivot his messaging, at least in his speeches,

00:02:50.960 Carney's liberals are holding on to their lead in the polls.

00:02:53.740 As the ballot box issue this election continues to be about who is best suited to handle Trump.

00:02:59.040 Speaking of the polls, there's a brewing issue within the Conservative Party that's starting to make some people a little nervous.

00:03:06.560 At a Polyev rally this week, a group of supporters were wearing matching hats and hoodies that were emblazoned with the message,

00:03:12.600 quote, do you believe the polls? This prompted one conservative strategist to take to Twitter

00:03:18.040 and issue a warning. It read, quote, dear conservative friends, stop. We have rules.

00:03:24.340 We accept outcomes based on following those rules. Following rules is a core conservative value.

00:03:30.860 Please don't plant seeds to do the opposite. The Globe and Mail's Ottawa bureau chief,

00:03:35.520 Robert Fyfe, also took to Twitter to share that he has heard the conservative campaign manager,

00:03:39.920 jenny byrne has been telling people the conservatives are quote winning don't believe

00:03:44.800 the polls we have so many lawn signs and big rallies this whole debacle led journalists to

00:03:51.680 ask both pierre polyev and mark carney whether they'll accept the outcome of the election no

00:03:57.200 matter who wins and here are the clips of how both of them responded starting with mark carney

00:04:02.080 do you believe the polls right now and do you commit to recognizing the result of the election

00:04:06.160 whatever it is jeez of course of okay this is canada this is canada i know a lot i know there's

00:04:14.560 certain parties that just import all their slogans and their policies from america but let's not

00:04:19.120 import that nonsense into canada we will have and we are in the midst of a fair and open and free

00:04:25.920 election in canada and this is how pierre pauliev responded we've met people at your rallies who

00:04:31.520 don't believe the polls do you believe the polls and can you commit today that you will respect

00:04:35.680 the results of the election no matter the outcome yes and that decision will be based on whether

00:04:40.800 after a lost liberal decade of rising crime and costs and a falling economy under america's thumb

00:04:47.360 we can trust the we can afford a fourth liberal term meanwhile poliev has seemed really excited

00:04:53.280 about the size of his rallies lately one rally this week which saw former conservative prime

00:04:58.320 minister stephen harper rear his lego-haired head again to endorse pierre poliev over mark carney

00:05:04.080 apparently might have had as many as 15 000 people in attendance that is impressive but it was also

00:05:10.160 in alberta and overall we'll see if that rally size ends up translating into anything significant

00:05:15.520 come election day either way poliev has been very happy with the turnout listen to how he responded

00:05:21.360 to a reporter's question about whether size really matters at what point are you just talking in an

00:05:26.960 echo chamber to people who already feel that way or do you feel like these are broadening the tent

00:05:31.040 of support to liberal or undecided voters to get them on board with your campaign i think it's

00:05:35.260 pretty broad i think how many how many people do you think we had last night thousands well that's

00:05:39.520 pretty obvious i think you can be more precise than that i i don't i mean the party said 10 000

00:05:44.500 register there's reports of 15 i i really can't say one last question how when was the last time

00:05:48.940 we had a rally that big in canada i don't know i've never been to one a political rally that

00:05:52.820 big i don't think you know a lot about politics you're a very well informed person i know that

00:05:56.400 if there were a bigger rally than that you would know about it i think so but i think it was pretty

00:06:00.860 incredible. Any of you there? Magic. Now, that question you just heard was one of just four

00:06:05.440 questions that was asked with no follow-ups, because that's how conservative campaign press

00:06:09.900 conferences go these days. And we know this because reporters are increasingly speaking out

00:06:14.540 about the levels of media control coming from Polyev's team. Not only does Polyev only take

00:06:19.600 four questions from four hand-picked journalists, after, at times, reportedly trying to find out what

00:06:26.100 those questions are in advance, which is a big no-no. But staffers also reportedly hold up the

00:06:31.600 microphone during questions and whisk it away before reporters can press Polyev on his answer

00:06:37.000 or, God forbid, ask a follow-up. At one press conference this week where media was forced to

00:06:41.840 stand in a little fenced-in area about 25 meters away from the leader, one journalist from CTV News

00:06:47.440 decided to try her best to get her not-selected question to Pierre Polyev anyways. She had to

00:06:53.140 out because of both the distance she was from the leader and the fact that she wasn't handpicked by

00:06:58.260 the staffers so she didn't have access to the microphone and this is how that went

00:07:02.980 call in questions from the phone line and this will be the final question

00:07:08.980 sorry i'm listening

00:07:12.580 sorry there's just a protester here go ahead all right sorry is there we're listening we're trying

00:07:18.340 to listen for the the next person who's asking a question i think it's uh that's right paulia

00:07:24.580 referred to a journalist who is an accredited member of the parliamentary press gallery as a

00:07:29.060 quote protester nice meanwhile the stakes are getting higher on the campaign trail not only

00:07:34.580 are we getting more of a sense of the promises that the leaders say they'll make good on if

00:07:38.420 they're elected but a really important deadline passed in the last week the nomination deadline

00:07:44.260 that means the current candidates are all locked in and can't be replaced so parties hoping to

00:07:49.780 inflict maximum damage on their political adversaries might have sat on any dirt they've

00:07:54.740 dug up until now especially when it comes to tight races because now if they spill that tea the

00:08:01.860 candidate can't be replaced which makes bad headlines potentially a lot more damaging so

00:08:07.460 far the most prominent calls for resignations that have emerged are focused on two conservative

00:08:12.340 candidates. Aaron Gunn, who has made really disgusting comments about residential schools,

00:08:17.300 continues to cling to his candidacy despite calls from several First Nations leaders for his party

00:08:22.320 to give him the boot. And Andrew Lawton, who used to work for True North, if that rings any bells,

00:08:27.340 is facing calls for removal from a Muslim group and some of his prospective constituents over his

00:08:33.200 past comments about marginalized groups, including women, the Muslim community, and 2SLGBTQ plus

00:08:38.700 groups. Press Progress also recently reported that Lawton was part of a secret signal chat group

00:08:43.420 during the so-called Freedom Convoy, where they chatted about a bunch of stuff, including, at

00:08:47.780 times, ideas for social media posts. Meanwhile, there was a bit of an uptick in stories about

00:08:52.680 foreign interests in our elections this week. And none of them had to do with Elon Musk, I know.

00:08:58.940 I guess his plate is a little bit full destroying one democracy right now. On Monday, the Security

00:09:03.780 and Intelligence Threats to Elections or CITE Task Force, found a Chinese information operation

00:09:09.700 was targeting Mark Carney over WeChat with positive and negative messaging. There was also

00:09:15.200 a story from Global News about folks who have ties to a pro-Modi organization donating thousands of

00:09:20.720 dollars to Poliev's leadership campaign. And most recently, there was a Globe and Mail story about

00:09:25.240 the person who replaced a booted liberal candidate having some links to pro-China groups. But there

00:09:30.360 are some really important nuances when it comes to reporting on foreign interference that sometimes

00:09:35.740 get missed in pursuit of a good headline. That's something we're going to get into a little later

00:09:40.420 in the episode. The last thing I want to mention is that in the last week, we saw Mark Carney

00:09:44.400 pressured to give a firm answer on two issues that I think are really important. The atrocities in

00:09:50.420 Gaza, which both Amnesty International and a UN special committee have found to be a genocide,

00:09:55.400 and trans folks access to health care. On the latter issue, Carney was specifically pressed

00:10:01.120 on Alberta's attacks on trans youth access to gender affirming care while he was campaigning

00:10:06.820 in the province. He responded, quote, access to health care in Canada is not a business. It is a

00:10:12.500 fundamental right and we will defend it for all Canadians without exception. The implication of

00:10:17.540 his statement was that this includes trans folks access to health care, which is awesome to hear.

00:10:22.740 but what was less awesome was that he didn't specifically mention trans folks, which makes me

00:10:27.660 wonder if he's afraid of how that kind of a clip could be used against him, which is something I

00:10:33.460 find really depressing. Still, it is a slightly better answer than Pierre Poliev has given on

00:10:38.400 this issue, given not only that he has defended Daniel Smith's actions to attack trans rights,

00:10:43.920 but also the fact that he doesn't seem to understand that, like, non-binary people,

00:10:47.320 trans people, intersex people, two-spirit people exist. Or at least he pretends he does it.

00:10:52.740 take a listen well i'm not aware of any other genders than men and women i mean if you have

00:10:58.920 any other that you want me to consider you're welcome to tell me right now well there's well

00:11:03.660 there's personally i am a man i am okay we'll say cis man there are there are people there who you

00:11:10.380 know they say they're me too i'm a neutral you're a man yes there are people out there who say

00:11:14.380 they're some gender neutral yeah they say they're gender neutral uh they're you know they're they're

00:11:19.700 a trans person. Is that something that you would recognize here? Whereas in the States,

00:11:25.580 at least with their U.S. government, the way they're seeing it, there's only two.

00:11:31.680 I'm only aware of two, but I mean, if you have, if you come up with another list, then

00:11:36.700 you're welcome to do that. But I'm aware of two.

00:11:39.880 Yeah. Meanwhile, Mark Carney has also been pushed on the issue of Palestine,

00:11:44.360 with protesters showing up to his events to pressure him to speak about the issue.

00:11:48.320 At a recent rally, one protester yelled, quote, there's a genocide in Gaza, and Carney responded, quote, I'm aware.

00:11:55.540 But when pressed on Wednesday by a reporter to confirm if he actually meant what we thought he meant there,

00:12:02.380 Carney said that he didn't hear the protester use the word genocide.

00:12:06.680 The next day, he was explicitly asked if he considers what's happening in Gaza to be a genocide, and here's what he had to say.

00:12:13.060 This question is in front of the International Court of Justice.

00:12:17.940 The situation is a horrible situation.

00:12:20.300 I will not, and I will never, politicize that word or this situation.

00:12:25.420 Pierre Polyev, meanwhile, in a recent interview with Radio Canada,

00:12:28.240 said that he believes that UNRWA,

00:12:30.060 one of the primary providers of humanitarian aid to Gaza,

00:12:33.220 are, quote, terrorists,

00:12:35.280 citing allegations from Israel about 19 of the organization's 30,000 members.

00:12:40.940 allegations that UNRWA investigated and that led to the firing of nine folks over the possibility

00:12:45.720 of a connection between those people and the awful October 7th attacks. Still, Paliyev said

00:12:50.780 he would cut off foreign aid to UNRWA, something that would absolutely exacerbate the existing

00:12:55.760 humanitarian crisis in the region and worsen Canada's complicity in innocent people in Gaza

00:13:01.760 starving to death. Meanwhile, in the last week, footage emerged showing Israeli troops gunning

00:13:07.000 down paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent, despite the flashing lights that were turned on

00:13:12.860 on their ambulances and the safety gear they were wearing that clearly indicated they were aid

00:13:18.320 workers. The 15 workers were found buried in a mass grave at the side of the road, and their

00:13:22.920 ambulances were crushed and partially buried too. On top of that, Israel just killed 29 people,

00:13:28.340 including children, with a strike on a residential building in Gaza. So now would be a really great

00:13:33.580 time for any of our political leaders to show some moral clarity and bravery on this issue.

00:13:39.300 I'm going to leave it there for the news this week. After the break, I've got Stephanie Carvin

00:13:43.060 here. She's a former national security analyst and academic, and she's here to help us all make

00:13:48.420 sense of the headlines that we're seeing about foreign interference, the things we can get right

00:13:52.880 about them, the things we can get wrong, and the question of threats to our democracy that we grow

00:13:58.060 in our own backyard. We'll be right back.

00:14:03.580 Few things seem to get Ottawa's parliamentary press gallery quite as excited as the following

00:14:09.860 two words, foreign interference. And to be fair, there have been some pretty wild stories on the

00:14:16.120 topic in recent years. But it sometimes feels like in all the fervor, an overarching message

00:14:20.500 we keep hearing from intelligence agencies and security officials keeps getting lost.

00:14:25.460 Our democratic institutions are still chugging along just fine. But that doesn't mean there

00:14:30.580 aren't attempts to muddy our democratic waters. Like how this week, the Security and Intelligence

00:14:35.680 Threats to Elections, or Psyched, task force found a Chinese information operation was targeting

00:14:41.480 Mark Carney on WeChat, with, despite what some pundits and politicians have tried to claim,

00:14:47.000 both positive and negative messaging. Then there's a global news story about folks with pro-Modi ties

00:14:52.400 who donated thousands of dollars to Pierre Paliyev's leadership campaign. All the while, as we're

00:14:57.240 looking at all of these threats of foreign interference, there are serious national

00:15:01.040 security threats right here at home, like the rise of far-right extremism. To help us make

00:15:06.040 sense of all of this, I am stoked to have Stephanie Carvin on the show today. She's a

00:15:10.700 former national security analyst and is an associate professor of international relations

00:15:15.200 at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. Her brain is very

00:15:20.400 big, and today she is sharing it with all of us. Steph, so happy to have you on the show. Welcome

00:15:25.640 to bubble pop thanks for having me on i am super excited to be here a big fan oh the feeling is

00:15:32.760 mutual okay so first things first i think we should go through some of the big stories of the

00:15:38.160 week um so the first one i wanted to touch on and we're recording this on wednesday evening so if

00:15:43.140 more stuff happens we're sorry okay we're doing our best um the news moves fast the space time

00:15:49.700 continuum, but yeah, there's a lot. Exactly. Yeah. So the first one I wanted to talk about

00:15:55.760 was the big global news story out today about folks with ties to pro-Modi organizations giving

00:16:02.420 thousands of dollars to Pierre Polyev's leadership campaign. Is that a big deal? What do you make of

00:16:07.660 that story? So I just want to, first of all, give a big shout out to Stuart Bell. I think he did a

00:16:12.320 really wonderful job with a very complex story. And I'm glad we're starting with the story because

00:16:18.020 I really do think it does show the issues around war interference, right? So, is this a big deal?

00:16:25.300 I would say yes, but we have to take it with a little bit of caution, right? We need to be a

00:16:35.060 little bit of caution because there isn't any real smoking gun. There's a lot of smoke, but maybe

00:16:41.860 not the direct lines in the story. But that's what I think actually makes it a good story because it

00:16:46.580 it shows the challenge of talking about foreign interference in a way that doesn't really involve

00:16:52.820 a tinfoil hat. You know, I think that's a really good point. You mentioned like without getting

00:16:56.500 too tinfoil hatty. So what is foreign interference exactly? And how do we know what constitutes that

00:17:03.040 and what doesn't? So I'm so glad we're starting with this, because again, it is really important

00:17:07.400 to define what we're talking about here, because, you know, it gets confusing. And sometimes, you

00:17:13.260 there's very legitimate activity which people think, oh, that's foreign interference. And

00:17:18.140 maybe it's just a bad idea, but no, it's not necessarily a foreign interference in the way

00:17:23.260 we think about it. And maybe we can talk about the Daniel Smith episodes that we had at the

00:17:27.820 beginning of this federal election campaign. But really, you're talking about activity that

00:17:31.980 is foreign directed, right? So it can't be by anyone who is in Canada or any kind of Canadian

00:17:38.140 entity, it has to be against Canadian interests, and it has to be really just either clandestine

00:17:46.540 in nature, or it has to be basically a threat against any person. So that's really what

00:17:52.700 we're talking about, right? Those kinds of criteria. And that's all in the CSIS Act,

00:17:57.900 if anyone really wants to go look that up, but that kind of establishes any big nerds,

00:18:02.540 all the policymakers out there. But that basically establishes whether or not someone is,

00:18:06.300 you know, that is the threshold for understanding what a national security

00:18:12.240 threat actually is. Now, there are other aspects here that are important, right?

00:18:16.680 So, the National Security Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, now we're

00:18:20.700 getting really nerdy. They are one of the bodies that we've set up to actually

00:18:24.720 review our intelligence services, and they differentiate foreign interference

00:18:29.460 with foreign influence, and that's a little bit more gray, right? And that's

00:18:34.080 where we see maybe some of the more things that are hard to describe where

00:18:39.480 you know it's not clandestine it's not you know necessarily a threat to any

00:18:44.340 person but maybe it's you know foreign leaders commenting on things that are

00:18:47.700 particularly helpful like perhaps you know a giant orange leader that just

00:18:52.200 happens to be the to the south of us commenting anyway so this is where we

00:18:59.820 have to disagree. So a good example of something that isn't foreign interference would actually be

00:19:05.260 that Daniel Smith episode, right? I mean, the fact is that, you know, she's Canadian, so it's not

00:19:11.420 foreign directed. You know, when she says, you know, knock it off because you're hurting my boy

00:19:15.060 here, that is not something that we consider foreign interference because you could make the

00:19:23.540 argument that maybe it's, you know, she's inviting it, and that was maybe what made the comments

00:19:28.980 problematic, but that's not what we would consider foreign interference at all. Whereas some of the

00:19:34.500 stuff in this global story, which is largely about whether or not pro-Modi or BJP, that's

00:19:41.940 his political party, elements in Canada were funding the PolyEF campaign. And so where I think

00:19:48.100 we have to be a little bit careful, I think the story raises some interesting questions.

00:19:54.420 So for example, were the individuals who were providing money, were they foreign-directed

00:19:58.740 or were they doing it out of their own volition and it's hard we know they had foreign links

00:20:04.100 but we don't know if they were foreign directed and there's no i think clear answer to that in

00:20:08.340 the story but this is perhaps where intelligence having a security clearance might help i'm sorry

00:20:16.580 don't worry i'm gonna ask you about that before we close out for the day sure yeah but that's right

00:20:20.740 because if there is intelligence suggesting that individuals do have links and they could

00:20:24.660 be foreign directed you know maybe this is stuff you want to stay away from right so that is uh

00:20:29.860 part of of and parcel of this story right so based on the definition you provided and you can tell

00:20:37.220 me if this is uh if i'm understanding this correctly and maybe you correcting me could be

00:20:43.060 explaining like whether this is foreign interference or not but the mark carney story right like the

00:20:48.820 the site task force um in talking about mark carney the influence campaign targeting him

00:20:55.860 through wechat they said that that came from the prc right so like that that seemed to come from

00:21:02.500 the chinese government which would make it foreign directed correct and therefore foreign interference

00:21:08.180 yeah so so i did want to ask you about that story i mean like what is the significance that

00:21:14.020 Canadians should attach to that because one thing I found interesting sorry to ramble a little here

00:21:19.540 but the the site task force was really explicit about the fact that it was both positive and

00:21:25.460 negative but we've seen a lot of journalists and politicians just hold on to the positive

00:21:32.260 aspects and say China's been supporting Mark Carney which which feels incorrect and the site

00:21:38.020 task force was really clear about saying that we shouldn't grab a narrative out of this because

00:21:43.540 we're kind of in a weird way doing the bidding of the of the effort from the Chinese government

00:21:49.860 when we do that so I guess I just want you to comment on all of that because you know a lot

00:21:54.100 more about this than me so I mean is it for it yeah yeah no I mean there's so there's so much

00:21:59.700 to unpack there right so a site the site task force that's the security to election sorry

00:22:04.420 security and intelligence to elections task force right yeah this was established after

00:22:09.380 the election in 2016 in the United States, and the Canadian government saw what happened, 0.80

00:22:14.500 it was like, oh crap. And one of the things that came out of that election in the United States, 0.79

00:22:19.940 where it was very clear that Russia had done the interference, was that the intelligence community

00:22:23.940 knew, but was scared to come forward, and there was no mechanism to come forward, because the

00:22:31.300 intelligence community itself didn't want to look like it was interfering in the election. So that

00:22:36.180 interference was never really publicly acknowledged until the Robert Mueller report, and there was some

00:22:40.340 intelligence community reports that came out after that. So this task force was set up to do that,

00:22:45.540 and it itself has come under criticism. So in 2021, for example, it did note that there was some

00:22:53.220 foreign directed activity regarding potentially some MPs out in BC, I believe, and potentially

00:23:03.060 in parts of the GTA, the Greater Toronto Area. But the thing is, it didn't reach a certain

00:23:09.240 threshold. And the threshold that used to be whether or not Canada was still able to have a

00:23:13.880 free and fair election. So there was this kind of micro-targeting. But the idea that this was

00:23:17.940 affecting the election overall was probably not the case. And that was also found to be the case

00:23:22.380 by the Foreign Interference Commission, which, if you remember, way back in January, actually

00:23:28.360 published this very long 800-page report that basically I think you can just see it at the edge

00:23:33.320 of my frame there it's ah there you go yeah just sneaking in there nice little cameo I like that

00:23:39.640 for us um so all of this to say is that um we've seen an evolution in this task force uh that

00:23:47.480 basically it's now identifying things publicly that okay it's not saying that the election has

00:23:53.240 been compromised it's not saying that Canada can't have a free and fair election but it is identifying

00:23:57.480 activity that's problematic. And I think this is a good thing. So what did they actually say? I mean,

00:24:02.200 I think you've summarized it well, that basically there is a campaign around Mark Carney, which is

00:24:09.240 amplifying. I mean, I've looked at some of the messages and I'm going to be honest with you,

00:24:12.440 I don't speak Chinese, but the translation seemed to suggest that it was kind of like a pretty

00:24:19.320 milquetoast endorsement. It was kind of like, oh, Mark Carney and the President of the United

00:24:24.360 States spoke, and he did a good job. It wasn't exactly like a full-throated, like, this is a man

00:24:30.180 of the future. This is a man we can do business with. It was nothing like that. And then it was

00:24:35.740 all kind of messages around that. So I would agree with the site task force in that, okay,

00:24:41.320 we need to be cautious in determining the motivation, I think, for a couple of reasons.

00:24:46.260 One is that the actual person who made the message is almost certainly, I think it's the

00:24:53.920 number one news account. Yeah, they were saying something like that. Yeah, a really popular news

00:24:58.740 account. So we have to assume that they probably have some kind of PRC support or at least, you

00:25:04.260 know, that they're allowed by the PRC, which, you know, because they're in China. But their purpose

00:25:10.820 in saying that could have been different from the reasons it was amplified, right? Because the people,

00:25:16.920 the person who wrote it wasn't the people who were amplifying it. And those people were actually

00:25:21.160 identified with two other campaigns. The campaign that went after Michael

00:25:24.580 Chong, that was identified last year, as well as a campaign targeting

00:25:29.320 Chrystia Freeland during the liberal leadership campaigns. This is the

00:25:33.880 same bot network. So it's possible that they just simply were experimenting,

00:25:38.380 right? That this was, you know, because they're just trying, like maybe were they

00:25:41.680 just testing out their techniques? Were they testing out their capacity? So we

00:25:44.980 have to be careful in assuming this was a full-throat endorsement. This just may

00:25:49.000 been a way to test the waters like how are we at uh you know this is a new guy we don't really know

00:25:54.280 him um we don't know how well messages will spread in the community so let's try and spread some

00:25:59.960 let's spread something and see what happens um that's one of the possibilities or alternatively

00:26:05.960 it could have been they maybe they considered that a full-throat endorsement oh um my understanding

00:26:11.640 was there were a few negative ones like i think they mentioned a few examples that were a little

00:26:16.040 less glowing um but but it was just like a mess the glowing ones were on yeah yeah it seems like

00:26:22.600 it was just like a pollution effort honestly but i don't know i mean that's kind of the whole point

00:26:27.880 that they were saying is like we don't know what the goal was right right there could even be something

00:26:33.000 counterintuitive going on right like you know if it gets into canadian hands that they were doing

00:26:37.640 this you know positive messaging then you know we're seeing now that that's being used to attack

00:26:42.360 mark carney so there's i think that there's a lot of like 3d chess that you could you could go you

00:26:47.240 could absolutely tinfoil the hell out with this if you think too much so the reason but that's just

00:26:52.440 it so like we can spend our all you know a lot of the media so a lot of the media who were commenting

00:26:58.360 on this were effectively i think they wanted to know what the intention was but i was trying to

00:27:04.360 say look it's not necessarily the intention here it's the fact that the the what what happened was

00:27:09.080 they detected this attempt. The fact that there was an attempt here to try and work the algorithm,

00:27:20.280 that it was inauthentically coordinated or amplified. For that reason, that's why they

00:27:26.760 felt they had to come forward. It was the attempt. It might not be possible for us to ever understand

00:27:33.640 what they were thinking when they picked these very odd messages to circulate,

00:27:38.200 which, again, leads me to believe that maybe this was just a test run. But the fact is that this

00:27:42.600 inauthentic attempt was coordinated, and I think it's good to come forward with that, right? Because

00:27:48.920 it reminds Canadians that this is something that's happening, and it is something that

00:27:53.720 will probably happen in the next two to three weeks. We may see more examples of this coming

00:27:58.040 forward. You know, and this kind of raises an interesting thing that I do think about a lot,

00:28:04.200 because I sometimes feel like there is a bit of a fixation on foreign interference stories from the

00:28:10.340 parliamentary press gallery. We get really excited about them. Like I remember I went to the press

00:28:14.700 gallery dinner like two years ago and all the jokes all night were foreign interference. And I

00:28:19.820 was like, damn, I had been laid off a few months prior. So I was out of the bubble a bit and no one 0.97

00:28:25.980 felt like was really talking about it to the same degree. But I guess that one thing that stood out

00:28:31.560 to me there is the foreign interference commission highlighted that trust in democracy is hugely

00:28:36.020 important and hearing stories about attempted interference can sometimes if if they're not

00:28:41.720 carefully conveyed or if the rhetoric gets out of control can maybe shake that trust to a degree

00:28:47.920 um yeah yeah what do you think is the line in covering this i guess was the thing that i wanted

00:28:52.740 to ask you like how do we cover this responsibly without especially because people don't always

00:28:57.560 read past the headline you know like how do we cover this stuff responsibly

00:29:01.740 So I love this question for a number of reasons. Firstly, I think there's there is a big risk here

00:29:07.180 in demonizing communities, right? Totally. I do worry about this. We have seen,

00:29:13.020 you know, we've talked about the China story, or the story of Mark Carney in the PRC today,

00:29:18.300 as well as the story about Pierre Pali of India. And we have seen a surge in hate against both of

00:29:23.660 these communities in recent years, right? And especially last year, the kind of online hate

00:29:29.260 directed towards South Asian community was kind of really going off the charts to the point the CBC

00:29:34.200 was running stories about it. So I think that's the first thing is that we have to be careful in

00:29:38.680 terms of who we're actually talking about and to what purposes. I think the media to a large

00:29:44.920 extent does that, but we have to, I think, remember in the aggregate, sometimes that

00:29:48.580 big picture can be lost. And that's something I do worry about. That's one thing. The second

00:29:53.800 thing is that we have to, you know, I saw a journalist today, we'll go nameless, but

00:29:59.220 they suggested that, okay, oh, this means that, you know, the PRC wants Kearney, and

00:30:03.980 India wants Paliyev. And I'm like, that's so simplistic, right? That's so simplistic.

00:30:09.420 Wild.

00:30:10.420 This is a very bad narrative to start putting forward. It is very clear to me that there

00:30:17.780 There is clearly attempts to just further interest, and these foreign actors are just

00:30:26.200 going to look for ways to further their interest, and they're party agnostic, right?

00:30:29.480 They're just going to find those actors that they think will further their ends in some

00:30:34.340 way.

00:30:35.340 And there's also, I think, a secondary purpose here that's sometimes lost that you got to,

00:30:39.740 I think, at the beginning of your question, which is that to a large extent, this activity

00:30:44.660 is done by authoritarian states or actors who don't really like or believe in democracy,

00:30:49.300 and they love it when we're fighting each other, that when we lose trust in our system,

00:30:54.260 when we lose trust in our democracy, and a big part of foreign interference, particularly from

00:30:59.860 Russia, which I would say mostly attacks the United States but clearly makes it up through

00:31:04.980 our media ecosystem and here into Canada, the idea that our elections are not free and fair,

00:31:09.860 that the system is rigged, all these different kinds of narratives make it up the chain.

00:31:14.900 And that's good because then that encourages apathy. It encourages mistrust in the system.

00:31:21.700 And one of the things I'm really about is something I like to call foreign interference,

00:31:25.940 interference, which is where I do worry that will people accept the result of the election

00:31:34.020 if they're worried about foreign interference? I mean, I think it's a good thing that, as you said,

00:31:39.300 You know, journalists are talking about this now in ways that, you know, did not happen 10 years ago, right? Absolutely did not happen 10 years ago. We've seen this huge awareness in the last 10 years. And to a large extent, I think it's good that we understand these problems. And again, largely that's because foreign interference often impacted communities that we didn't see as Canadian, right? These were newcomers to the country, new Canadians. We didn't see them as fully Canadian. We saw this as a foreign problem. We never did anything about it until it starts attacking

00:32:09.280 a bunch of white politicians on Parliament Hill, and now suddenly everyone cares about

00:32:12.560 foreign interference. Now, that's one thing. But I worry that if people believe that China's

00:32:21.320 gone all in on Kearney or that India has gone all in on Paliyev, and it's so much more messy than

00:32:25.640 that, then will people accept the results of the election in our polarized climate, or are they

00:32:32.540 just going to say, I don't accept this because I think it was foreign interference, and therefore

00:32:36.580 this was not a free or fair election and that's a really bad thing. Yeah and you know that actually

00:32:41.400 once again leads really well into another thing I wanted to ask you about which is that

00:32:45.800 you know we do often talk about these national security concerns from foreign adversaries

00:32:49.660 but as you and I both know Canada also has a fair number of domestic issues that impact our

00:32:55.380 democracy and one of those is like far-right extremism or you know these communities that

00:33:02.060 are really radicalized through a lot of disinformation or spread a lot of disinformation

00:33:06.260 And the Foreign Interference Commission did highlight disinformation as a key threat to our democracy. So I guess I wanted to ask you, I mean, how much of a risk does this domestic extremist disinformation element pose?

00:33:20.380 I mean, these are the kinds of things I remember. One thing that we heard a lot about Russia

00:33:24.540 was that Russia likes to take these existing divides and just amplify them. And so I guess

00:33:30.740 I wanted to ask you about our sort of homegrown issues and how much of a risk they pose to our

00:33:36.080 democratic institutions. Yeah. So I like the expression of Clint Watts, who, you know, was

00:33:42.820 former, I think he was in the army, then in the FBI. And now I think he actually works for Microsoft

00:33:47.000 up now. But he wrote a book called Messing with the Enemy, all about foreign interference and the

00:33:52.920 online disinformation and things like this. And he basically says Russia's tactic is to take a

00:33:57.620 crack and to try and turn it into a chasm. In other words, they're usually not trying to invent

00:34:03.620 narratives. I mean, sometimes they do, whether it's like, you know, bioweapons labs in Ukraine

00:34:07.880 or, you know, a 5G and vaccines and stuff like this and 5G and COVID rather. So sometimes they

00:34:15.960 do, but by and large, they like to find the social issues that are already dividing us

00:34:20.240 and find ways to really amp up the hate, the distrust, the mistrust. In a lot of cases,

00:34:28.920 scholars have shown that they find these polarized communities and target them with these narratives,

00:34:34.700 with these techniques. They try to use some of these communities that are pre-existing

00:34:40.360 and then try to polarize them even further um into into some kind of extremism so they're they're

00:34:46.520 kind of like taking what's there but making it a lot worse and there are people who are willing to

00:34:52.680 to do this witting witting and unwitting i think was the foreign interference expression i would

00:34:57.080 say um in the case of um the wedding we saw with the tenant media back in september yeah right like

00:35:04.920 these people were willing including it was a canadian company that was effectively taking

00:35:09.880 money from russia in order to pay influencers at least one being canadian um and um to to spread

00:35:17.000 pro-russian narratives online uh i mean they got paid a lot of money rachel i mean i don't i don't

00:35:21.800 know how well bubble pops doing but definitely not as well as like a single week of what those guys

00:35:29.640 yeah crazy money they're being for not a ton of views honestly but like the fact is again it's

00:35:35.240 that attempt but it goes to show you like the kind of um these states are innovative um and

00:35:41.560 they are definitely going to try and continue to use these kind of polarized communities further

00:35:45.960 because they already have a lot of the ingredients that kind of make for these narratives which are

00:35:51.000 um you know mistrust in the system um a lot of um belief in in extremist uh extremist views already

00:35:59.400 and kind of this real it's I don't like the term echo chamber because it's not just an echo chamber

00:36:06.880 it's actually a chamber that's moving right to the idea is that like over time it's actually

00:36:12.520 becoming more extreme and I think this is something that we we we have to really worry about.

00:36:18.020 Yeah yeah and I guess I wanted to ask you about politicians responsibilities here because

00:36:22.460 you know one thing that I've noticed is a certain amount of dog whistling of some of the conspiracies

00:36:27.960 that you see circulating in these communities, like, you know, when politicians shall remain

00:36:33.180 nameless, Bernier and Polyev, talk about eating bugs, or, you know, things like that. I mean,

00:36:40.360 it's stressful, because I worry about that validating some of the concerns that these

00:36:48.200 folks have. Although I guess conversely, maybe I could invalidate it, because they so inherently

00:36:52.120 are distrustful of politicians and institutions that maybe hearing that from their mouths,

00:36:55.960 they're like, oh, maybe this isn't something we should listen to. No, I'm getting too big brain

00:37:00.960 with it. But what do you think of, where is the responsibility of politicians to be cautious with

00:37:05.840 these narratives as we deal with these rising disinformation threats? You know what is interesting?

00:37:10.880 I will say I have been on the World Economic Forum website. There is actually a lot on bugs.

00:37:15.680 They're not helping themselves. It's a brain source of protein. I'm sorry. And it's more

00:37:19.180 environmentally friendly. But the fact is, all this stuff is taken out of context. So I think

00:37:25.600 one of the issues is that like you know like one thing one of the things that i think trump really

00:37:29.280 perfected is taking something with a grain of truth and then just piling on falsehoods and

00:37:35.360 um kind of interweaving these narratives right around it and i do worry that we we are seeing

00:37:41.440 this right um i worry that um you know again like i i want to be clear i i don't want to endorse or

00:37:48.240 non-endorse candidates. I mean, I'm a civil servant, trying to be nervous, trying to be

00:37:53.680 neutral here. But it is, I think, a proven fact that one of the loudest cheers that Pierre Paulyov

00:37:59.600 gets at his rallies is about the World Economic Forum. It's a belief that people have. I mean,

00:38:07.440 I remember one day, my dad came home and said, hey, Stephanie, what is this World Economic Forum

00:38:12.080 Because some of these buddies were talking about it, and I said, oh, geez.

00:38:16.880 But I mean, I think the thing is where it's important is to really, I think the vast majority

00:38:22.900 of people don't understand where these conspiracies have come from and kind of some of the anti-Semitic

00:38:26.960 origins that really start with them, right?

00:38:30.220 This idea about George Soros and the idea that there's some kind of cabal that is controlling

00:38:38.460 the world and wants to eliminate borders and wants to effectively eliminate, in some cases,

00:38:45.560 the white race in its most extreme interpretations. And I think when you start unpacking that for

00:38:51.160 people, it's important. I think it's also important to try and explain that maybe politicians

00:38:58.600 can't do this, but I think it's incumbent on the media to unpack these things and not just say,

00:39:02.760 oh, World Economic Forum certainly got a big cheer. Well, that World Economic Forum narrative

00:39:07.440 is kind of a repackaged narrative that dates back at least 100 years, if not more, of this

00:39:14.060 global cabal, right, that's trying to kind of take over the world. And usually in the

00:39:19.360 most extreme interpretations, it's Jews that are comprised of this cabal, right? So you

00:39:24.940 do worry that this is something where, you know, it is high, like, you know, people who

00:39:31.760 are repeating this, I'm not suggesting that they know or understand the origins of this,

00:39:36.100 But there are people who are promoting this absolutely knowing the origins of this.

00:39:40.480 And we have to be really, really careful.

00:39:42.900 Right now, it's the World Economic Forum.

00:39:45.120 In 2018, 2019, it was the global compact on migration.

00:39:51.080 And we saw Andrew Scheer raise that up in the House of Commons, which was disturbing.

00:39:56.940 Because, again, it's the exact same idea that there's this idea of this global cabal that is running things.

00:40:01.580 So I think this is where it becomes incumbent on the media where possible to unpack these

00:40:06.220 narratives and explain where they come from, who is promoting them, and for what purpose.

00:40:11.040 Because then I think the vast majority of people who maybe are cheering this stuff on

00:40:16.340 might think twice if they understand where this actually came from.

00:40:22.440 Yeah.

00:40:22.820 And I frankly think that there's unfortunately a bit of a level of discomfort in doing that

00:40:27.640 because, I mean, they see people like me who have reported on this stuff extensively and

00:40:34.100 it really does tar you in a way as partisan when it's just a reality that often, like right now,

00:40:43.020 you can't pretend that it's coming from voices that it's not in the service of avoiding, you

00:40:48.120 know, you can't force balance onto the situation if these narratives aren't coming from the liberals

00:40:54.780 or the NDP. I can't pretend that it is, you know, so I'm just going to report on it as it happens.

00:40:59.580 And that's what media I think struggles with is it's hard because then you face these accusations

00:41:04.140 of bias and newsrooms are really, really concerned about that. And I just hope that that doesn't get

00:41:09.820 in the way of really doing that public service of breaking down these narratives and explaining

00:41:14.220 even unwittingly what they might be dog whistling. I do think that there's got to be a level of

00:41:18.460 understanding at this point that there's a broader conspiracy theory that they should look into more

00:41:23.260 here. But, you know, I think that it's a tough one for the media to wrap its head around

00:41:30.580 with the ideas of neutrality.

00:41:31.580 It gets dismissed as, like, economic anxiety or stuff like this, right? Like, it gets dismissed

00:41:35.540 as, oh, you know, rural resentment and stuff like this. I'm like, no, this is a straight-up

00:41:38.700 conspiracy theory.

00:41:39.660 Exactly. I know.

00:41:41.580 And politicians may not know themselves, know the origins. They just know it gets a big

00:41:45.820 cheer, right? But let me, like, not that I should flip the script here, but I would

00:41:49.940 like to like I mean I'm not the media like I just try to live in my own little ivory tower to a

00:41:56.100 certain extent I mean so like like do you sometimes feel crazy explaining this stuff a hundred percent

00:42:01.540 and sometimes you sound like a weirdo right oh my god completely like sometimes I'll point out a

00:42:07.260 dog whistle and I feel like that that meme of the guy with like from uh it's always sunny in

00:42:12.200 philadelphia where he's like oh yeah and pointing at the yarn on the wall that's what it feels like

00:42:17.260 because the reality is, is the conspiracies themselves are like that. So to be able to

00:42:21.400 explain how we got here, like, oh, what the 14 and the 88 stands for, but then you watch like

00:42:26.580 neo-Nazi documentaries and stuff and they're like, yeah, that's how we speak to each other.

00:42:31.120 That's how we like, you know, do a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And so it's hard because that's

00:42:35.500 why they do it in that way, because it's really hard. You can brush it off. And that's the point

00:42:40.240 of a dog whistle is only some people hear it as intended, right? So it is, it's a tough one.

00:42:45.720 um you know i i probably i could talk about that all day um but i did want to i'm just curious from

00:42:53.060 your perspective no it like like yeah i mean you're always interviewing interesting people

00:42:57.380 but you yourself are interesting and i've learned i've learned from you as well so thank you no no

00:43:01.840 it's it's good it's good it's good to have this conversation about how hard it is to to talk

00:43:07.040 about this and it is in a way that's responsible accessible and it takes so much more effort to

00:43:13.040 unpack than just to like you they call it a dog whistle because it's it's a it's a sudden lap

00:43:19.200 it's a sudden burst yeah that only the targeted audience hears but they hear it and they know how

00:43:24.160 to spread it right and it's very quick and very easy to do you unpack that it could be hours you

00:43:29.360 know and it's very very difficult and you sound like a crazy person yeah particularly when the

00:43:35.280 intention is to maintain that plausible deniability that's you know joke oh it's a joke

00:43:40.320 the irony poisoning oh my god it's out of control oh my god we'll have to do another episode like

00:43:44.960 talking about that kind of thing yeah sometime um so i i did want to ask you one last question

00:43:49.920 because i just feel like i would be remiss if i didn't given what we're talking about and the

00:43:53.920 fact that you're a national security expert the security clearance thing oh yeah um what do you

00:44:00.720 make of his reason for not getting it like he says that he would be gagged um pier poliev uh for

00:44:05.600 anyone who i'm assuming that most people listening know about pierre poliev not getting his security

00:44:10.160 clearance and and the fact that he's like yeah yeah all the other leaders have it um and he

00:44:16.900 believes that he would be gagged if he got briefings on stuff he then wouldn't be able to

00:44:21.300 speak about certain issues what do you make of that excuse what do you think of the fact that

00:44:26.160 he won't get it i think that some people do get conspiratorial with this too so i it's it's a hard

00:44:30.480 thing to talk about responsibly as well this is absolutely yeah i know i get people in my dms all

00:44:35.720 people ask me, like, oh, Pierre Polyab, he's a Russian asset. He's not. Oh, my God. Come on,

00:44:41.080 people. I think he's just partisan, and just, like, that's what it is. This is what he views

00:44:46.780 as politically beneficial, but I want to hear from the expert. Well, this is, no, no, but I think

00:44:51.180 this is right, but just to show that conspiracy theories are not, like, all from one side, just

00:44:56.220 to be clear. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm not trying to both sides it, but, like, it is something to

00:45:00.080 hear. No, but it is true. Like, you're not immune from conspiracies just because you're from a

00:45:03.460 particular political perspective.

00:45:04.460 I mean, my mom is absolutely convinced the lottery is rigged.

00:45:07.460 That's maybe fair.

00:45:08.460 That could be a whole other episode.

00:45:10.460 So, yeah, I mean, look, I think the first place we have to start off with is that in

00:45:17.220 no world should a security service determine who is or is not an eligible candidate for

00:45:25.200 a political party, right?

00:45:26.460 People are saying, well, you know, the CESHA should check people before they run.

00:45:30.080 I'm like, no.

00:45:31.080 No, that's not.

00:45:32.080 That's dangerous.

00:45:33.080 East Germany talk, right? Like this is not, this is not the way we run things, right? It does have

00:45:37.820 to be up to the political party to do it. It should be up to the politician. So I don't think

00:45:43.320 there should be an obligation. I think it should be a choice. But that being said, I don't understand

00:45:48.360 it. I don't think that the person would necessarily be gagged, right? That all the other

00:45:56.600 leaders have been able to kind of talk about foreign interference. Actually, I think the

00:46:00.760 Bloc Quebecois actually has done an amazing job of talking about this.

00:46:04.320 I think Yves Blanchet's actually been great.

00:46:06.460 He's a really good communicator.

00:46:08.540 Brilliant.

00:46:09.020 And he has his clearance.

00:46:10.360 And I think he spoke very well about this issue last summer.

00:46:13.380 So the question to me is, yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:46:17.680 But I don't think it should be a disqualifier in a formal sense for someone who's running to be prime minister.

00:46:26.860 I mean, look, whoever becomes prime minister does not need to have security clearance.

00:46:30.980 They are the prime minister.

00:46:32.120 They get to run the show.

00:46:34.760 So, Paliyev will be able to get it, or he will get access to the intelligence regardless

00:46:40.940 as to whether or not he has clearance in advance.

00:46:44.920 His cabinet minister will go through, or cabinet ministers, if elected, will go through a light

00:46:50.540 security process.

00:46:51.820 And I mean, to be clear, the cabinet ministers usually won't be trawling through the

00:46:56.280 intelligence, right? They're going to be receiving high-level briefings that might involve some high

00:47:01.480 level intelligence, but not like they're combing through the databases. They don't have time for

00:47:05.680 that. So yeah, I mean, it's an odd issue. I think it's kind of because foreign interference does

00:47:11.920 seem to be coming back again and again in this election in weird ways. I think it has

00:47:18.700 continuously raised this question. So I don't understand why he just didn't go through it,

00:47:24.380 but that's his choice. It's for him to defend. And I think the public should judge him on his

00:47:33.980 decisions and whether or not it even matters to them because, you know, quite clearly a lot of

00:47:38.360 people, it doesn't matter at all. And that's just the way it is. But I don't think, put it this way,

00:47:46.120 I don't think him having a security clearance would necessarily bar him from speaking out

00:47:51.280 on certain issues because certainly we have seen other candidates or other party leaders with that

00:47:57.960 clearance being able to speak about these issues in fairly good and useful ways. Yeah, I do kind

00:48:03.680 of feel like the security clearance thing is one of those issues where it's not going to be a ballot

00:48:08.060 box question for anyone. It's not going to be a deciding factor. I think it's more something that

00:48:13.200 we hear as like just another criticism, you know, that's basically it. Yeah, it may shape these

00:48:20.740 kinds of things. But at the end of the day, the reason you should get the clearance is to protect

00:48:25.740 your party. This isn't about him getting the crown jewels. It's about being like, we talked

00:48:34.360 about earlier, hey, there's individuals here who may have links to a foreign government that are

00:48:39.860 trying to fund your campaign. This is not in your interest. Or you want to take another close look

00:48:44.700 at this and be sure this is something that you want, that this is you're okay with. That is the

00:48:50.480 kind of briefing that would be useful to protect your party down the line. And that's why I think

00:48:55.280 leaders should get a clearance. But again, CISA should not be predetermining or screening

00:49:00.540 candidates. This is just something that parties should use as a tool to protect themselves,

00:49:06.680 knowing about the kinds of threats that are out there. Yeah. Yep. I think that makes a lot of

00:49:11.520 sense. Okay, Steph, I have one last question for you, and then I should let you go because I've

00:49:17.580 already held you for longer than I initially said I would. I wanted to just ask, what is the main

00:49:23.600 thing that you think, and that's a really big question to just throw at you, that Canadians

00:49:28.780 should keep in mind on this topic, on foreign interference and national security, which is a

00:49:35.120 massive topic that maybe they don't normally have front of mind. Is there anything that you want to

00:49:40.200 leave them with? I think I would just go back to this idea that it's complex. This isn't about

00:49:45.180 you know, China supporting one party, India supporting another party, Russia supporting a

00:49:48.920 party. There is a very real threat that foreign actors want us to lose faith in our democracy

00:49:58.440 and that this is a real threat if people don't believe in their... I mean, be critical of the

00:50:04.880 democratic institutions. I'm not saying you have to be a cheerleader. Absolutely. There's lots that

00:50:08.960 we could improve about our democratic processes. But I mean, like fundamentally lose faith in a

00:50:14.060 kind of way that you feel that there's no point in participation whatsoever or that all results

00:50:21.420 of elections are predetermined and things like this. I think there's a real asset to that because

00:50:26.920 then if we're spending a lot of time fighting each other, then we're not really looking at what's

00:50:31.380 happening abroad or it's harder for us to critique the authoritarian practices that are happening

00:50:36.960 abroad as well. So I think it's that. And I think the other thing to remember is a lot of the

00:50:42.300 attention on this has been on politicians. But the reality is that foreign interference is

00:50:48.500 something that has plagued our equity deserving communities for some time, our new Canadians and

00:50:55.080 things like this. And we need to remember that as well. And for all of the rightful concerns we have

00:51:02.060 about this, transnational repression is getting a little bit more attention. But I hope we don't

00:51:08.640 lose sight of that once this election is over. Yeah, I think that's a really important point.

00:51:13.680 I mean, even the Mark Carney story was primarily targeting Chinese Canadians, right? Like this

00:51:18.860 disinformation effort. So you have to keep in mind who are the victims in these scenarios as well.

00:51:22.920 It's not just the politicians whose names are in the news. Stephanie Carvin, thank you so much for

00:51:27.900 your time. Before I let you go, I need to give you the opportunity to pump your socials, your book,

00:51:33.780 or anything? Where can people find you? So they can find me on Blue Sky these days. I'm just

00:51:41.140 Stephanie Carvin. I'm starting to experiment with the Substack. I haven't quite got there yet, but

00:51:46.180 if you just look at Stephanie Carvin's Substack, please join. And I have some books that are in

00:51:51.220 libraries. One is Stand on Guard, which has two chapters on foreign interference in Canada. So

00:51:57.620 hopefully that will be, if you want to know more, that might be something you can do and always go

00:52:02.820 support your local library. I love it. Stephanie Carvin, thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

00:52:10.460 Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Bubble Pop. I'm Rachel Gilmore, your least

00:52:14.860 favorite person's least favorite journalist. If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing

00:52:18.880 to Bubble Pop on Substack, Patreon, YouTube, and wherever you like to listen. You can also find me

00:52:24.440 on TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, and Blue Sky. I'd like to say a special thank you to Hans-Vivien

00:52:29.260 Wenzel for making the incredibly groovy music for Bubble Pop. You can find more of his stuff on

00:52:33.680 Spotify under the artist name Hans. That's a lowercase h with an exclamation mark. Thanks

00:52:38.840 again for spending this time with me. This is my dream job, and I couldn't do it for a second

00:52:43.320 if I didn't have your support. So thank you, and I'll see you next time.

Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore - April 11, 2025

When (not) to freak out about foreign interference and democracy (With Stephanie Carvin)

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