China, Russia push foreign spying & interference in Canada to Cold War levels: Spy agency

The Canadian spy agency CSIS on April 12 said that the foreign spying and interference in Canada last year hit levels not seen since the Cold War. According to CSIS’ 2020 report, the agency singled out Russia and China as particular cases for concern and said that the key national security threats such as violent extremism, foreign interference, espionage and malicious cyber activity grew in 2020 and became “much more serious for Canadians”. The CSIS linked the jump in foreign spying to the increasing number of people working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In the report, Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director David Vigneault, said, “We observed how online platforms were used by violent extremists to continue the spread of harmful beliefs, including xenophobic, anti-authority narratives as well as conspiracy theories about the pandemic, in an attempt to rationalize and justify violence”. 

He added, “In 2020, CSIS observed espionage and foreign interference activity at levels not seen since the Cold War”.  

The latest report follows a year of warnings from the Canadian spy agency and other security agencies about national security vulnerabilities in Canada’s biopharmaceutical sciences sectors. The agency said that those reports were exposed to outside interference as large numbers of Canadians transitioned working for home. CSIS said that contacted 225 entities across Canada and briefed at least 2,000 Canadian stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic last year and continues to do so in 2021. 

Foreign actors collecting data through ‘nontraditional collectors’ 

Further, CSIS informed that one of the ways foreign actors collected political, economic and military information in Canada last year was through "nontraditional collectors," like researchers and private entities. The agency said that one of those tools, China’s Thousand Talents Program and academic exchanges, were used to exploit Canadian expertise. They also noted that China posed a serious strategic threat, while the signals intelligence agency last November identified state-sponsored programs in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as cybercrime threats for the first time.

The CSIS said, “China, Russia, and other foreign states continued to covertly gather political, economic, and military information in Canada through targeted threat activities in support of their own state development goals.”. 

(Image: AP)