Good morning, I’m Shannon Busta, filling in for Chris Hannay.
Ottawa will not be imposing new obligations on social-media platforms as part of its plan to protect Canadian elections from foreign interference. The plan is drawing criticism for failing to rein in some of the biggest potential sources of misinformation.
Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould announced on Wednesday a series of measures to safeguard the fall federal election from hackers and rival countries, including a team of senior bureaucrats that will inform the public if security agencies discover a large-scale threat during the electoral period.
Ms. Gould did not direct social-media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to take specific actions to stop the spread of disinformation as part of the proposed measures. Instead, she promised to continue discussions and encourage the sites to use all available tools at their disposal to bring greater transparency and integrity to their platforms.
This plan to protect elections comes a week after Facebook shut down a political ad transparency tool – the only one of its kind in Canada.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
NATO’s chief is urging China to treat two Canadians detained in the country “fairly and with due process” and said that he was following their case “with concern.” Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor have been detained in China since December for allegedly endangering national security.
Chief of Defence Staff General Jonathan Vance has told an Ottawa court he did not take notes when he met with top officials in the Prime Minister’s Office and spoke by phone to Justin Trudeau after learning that Vice-Admiral Mark Norman was under criminal investigation. Defence lawyers for Vice-Adm. Norman have been trying to obtain thousands of government documents related to the case, some of which they believe will exonerate their client.
The federal NDP is struggling to raise money, even as Conservative, Liberal and Green parties all boast record fundraising hauls as they head into an election year.
British Columbia’s governing New Democrats held a crucial seat in the Nanaimo by-election on Wednesday. The vote had the potential to decide if the New Democrats and their Green allies would continue to govern with a majority in the legislature.
Alberta is pulling back on the oil production limits it imposed earlier this year, after complaints from some of the province’s largest producers and a warning from one company that job cuts were imminent.
Former Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion has turned down her appointment as Premier Doug Ford’s special adviser, a position that would have paid as much as $150,000 a year. Ms. McCallion, who turns 98 next month, said that her “extensive commitments” prevent her from accepting the job.
And Donald Trump has called top U.S. intelligence officials “extremely passive and naive” a day after they told Congress the nuclear threat from North Korea remained and ISIS was far from dead.
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on the problem with Ottawa’s plan to protect the next election: “...the best election watchdog is transparency that makes it easy for more people to watch. But social-media companies don’t seem too keen on that kind of thing. Facebook just shut down a tool to track political ads built by U.S. non-profit public interest information site Pro Publica that was used by journalists in Canada and elsewhere, including The Globe and Mail.”
Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on the challenge Kamala Harris faces in her bid for the 2020 nomination: “Democratic activists are not in a very reasonable mood. Two years into Mr. Trump’s presidency, U.S. politics is veering evermore toward the extremes, and the soul of the Democratic Party has been captured by people who do not believe in compromise.”
Jonathan Manthorpe (contributed to The Globe and Mail) on Canada’s approach to China: “The CCP has been riding roughshod over Canadian values and interfering in Canadian internal affairs to a degree that sometimes amounts to a challenge to Canadians’ sovereignty within their own country. ... If Canada does not reassess and rework its approach to Beijing, this country may be steamrollered by the new juggernaut of history.”
Mary Rogan (The CBC) on the trouble with busing teenage boys to a debate on women’s reproductive rights: “Teenage boys should not be invited to a debate about women’s reproductive rights. The fact that their presence at an anti-abortion rally was little more than footnote in most of the coverage of this story speaks to how numb we’ve become to our society’s repressive swing to the right. It’s troubling that 46 years after Roe v. Wade, few people blinked when pubescent boys gathered with thousands of others to share their views on what women should do with their own bodies.”
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop