Foreign Interference at the Nomination Level with Conner Coles

In this episode, Elizabeth is joined by Conner Coles, a former lobbyist with experience working in and around politics, including during the political party candidate nomination process. Conner walks us through the issue of foreign interference in nomination races , how a lack of federal oversight in these contests exacerbates the problem, and the impact this can have on our democratic systems. Conner and Elizabeth dive into examples of foreign interference through news and government reports and discuss the implications of candidates being responsible for carrying the burden of foreign interference unknowingly. This episode closes with some of Conner’s recommendations for countering foreign interference  e at the nomination level.

Additional Resources:

• Conner mentions Michael Chong, A Conservative MP who was targeted by Beijing told a federal inquiry that Canada has become "a playground" for foreign interference.  
• Conner also mentions Micheal Chong’s testimony before the Foreign Interference Commission where Chong emphasized the need for more transparency.
• Conner and Elizabeth also discuss the 2019 case concerning former MPP Han Dong who won the Don Valley North riding despite misleading newsletters targeting Chinese-speaking residents.
• Elizabeth mentions recent reports on foreign interference in Canadian elections, including: 
  • The NSICOP Special Report on Foreign Interference in Canada’s Democratic Processes and Institutions
  • The Initial Report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, and
  • The First Report of the Independent Special Rapporteur  on Foreign Interference.
• Elizabeth and Conner also mention how foreign interference Is targeting diaspora Communities in Canada, including by threatening their families back home, particularly in countries like China, India, and Iran.
• As an example of one tool to improve Canada’s ability to counter foreign influence, Conner notes Bill C-377 (44-1), which, if passed, would formalize the process for parliamentarians to request a security clearance from the Government of Canada. 

Check out www.polcommtech.ca for annotated transcripts of this episode in English and French.

Transcript

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:00:04] Welcome to Wonks and War Rooms where political communication theory meets on the ground strategy. I'm your host, Elizabeth Dubois. I'm an Associate Professor and University research chair in politics, communication and technology at the University of Ottawa. My pronouns are she/her. Today we're talking about foreign interference at the nomination level with Conner Coles. Conner, can you introduce yourself, please?

Conner Coles: [00:00:26] Hello, my name is Conner Coles. I'm formerly from New Brunswick but now living in Ottawa. I've spent the last ten years working in and around politics, I've spent time as a lobbyist, as a consultant lobbyist representing various firms [and] various nonprofit organizations. I've also done a lot of campaign work, specifically at the nomination level - so what that means is I have some pretty solid firsthand experience not just watching, interacting and helping plan nominations. But also I spent the 2022 [Ontario election] campaign in a war room - which means that I was apprized and led several, what I would call high intensity research efforts, dealing with other candidates’ and our own candidates’ nomination problems or nomination challenges, and either using that in an intelligence gathering capacity or potentially as an opposition research capacity. So I'm very, very excited to be here and very excited to start talking about the problems with nomination meetings [also called nomination races or nomination contests], what we can do about them, and how we can make them better and more transparent for Canadians.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:01:38] Awesome, thank you! I am really excited to have you here (fellow East Coaster) and really excited to get to draw on all those different roles that you've played within that political sphere, so let's get into it! We're talking about foreign interference at the nomination level. When we talk about foreign interference, usually what comes to mind, in recent years, is disinformation and online campaigns to create an information environment that's toxic or chaotic or untrustworthy, and that can impact nomination levels, for sure, but there's a whole bunch more to it. Foreign interference, realistically, is any time a foreign actor (entity or individual) is influencing (in some way), electors [such as] potential voters or election outcomes, and that can also include things like using foreign funds to do election activities - so that's the big broad definition of what foreign interference is. And then nomination level, what we mean there is basically the level at which political parties choose which candidate is going to run in each riding, right? So each political party does it slightly differently, but, the basic idea is they often have a lot of different people who want to be the candidate for that party in the next election. They need to have some sort of process to pick which one.

Conner Coles: [00:03:03] Exactly. Given my experience, that's as good a summary as I think you'll get. The only thing I would add, just as a quick important note here for our listeners who might not be as familiar with the nomination process: in Canadian politics, there are seats in Parliament that are often called “safe seats”.- What that means is there are ridings that always (typically, like 90% of the time) will vote either Liberal, Conservative or NDP. And so nominations become that much more important, because once you become the nominee, that effectively means you are going to be the Member of Parliament] (MP) or the [Member of Provincial Parliament] (MPP) or the city councilor for that riding or ward. So when you talk about foreign interference, particularly at the nomination level, it becomes even more important to recognize and try and combat [it], especially when you get into these safe seats.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:03:55] Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And it's so interesting because when we're thinking about which ridings are the most hotly debated, and which ones are we most concerned that foreign interference might impact them[...] During an actual election campaign, usually [this discussion is focused on] the seats where we don't know who's going to win - a few hundred votes could really make the difference here. But pre-election, in that nomination stage, it's the complete opposite.

Conner Coles: [00:04:22] That's right. I think that's extremely the case. And I think one thing that we should be concerned about, perhaps, is the increasing levels at which our international adversaries recognize that voter participation is much higher, typically at the federal level. And so [we] often, in the news - particularly with the story about Michael Chong yesterday evening and his thoughts about foreign interference - we are seeing [foreign interference]increasingly at the municipal and at the provincial level because, quite frankly, participation levels at those levels are unlikely to hit [that] same level of national attention that we get with federal election. Just people aren't interested. [Note: Conner is referring to news coverage of Michael Chong’s testimony before the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference on September 18, 2024, as part of Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission (“the Commission”). A video of Mr. Chong’s testimony before the Commission is also available on CPAC.]  Particularly in 2022, when I was in the war room, Ontario's provincial election had a participation rate of something like 37% - [somewhere] in the high 30s [the final 2022 provincial election participation rate was 43.5%, the lowest rate recorded]. And so when you talk about safe seats, [and] when you talk about electoral interference, it becomes that much more apparent. Maybe not visually apparent, but certainly you can feel the effects that much more at these levels where there aren't as many eyeballs, perhaps, on these races.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:05:33] Yeah, that's a really interesting point. So I want to talk about some examples of foreign interference at the nomination level, but you're actually making me think we should take a step back. So can you walk us through like what a nomination process actually involves and who pays attention to them?

Conner Coles: [00:05:50] So that's a great question, and I can answer the second part relatively easily: who pays attention is not very many people. Given that there are no federal laws that govern nomination processes, it's entirely run by the parties [Note: Elections Canada did recently suggest some changes to the nomination process, however these are not binding]. So who pays attention are typically, unfortunately, people like me - nerds that are really either into politics or work in politics and who want to try and find the best candidate who is most likely to win that seat - or if it's a safe seat, who is most likely to best represent the party in that riding. Very few eyeballs on these processes, except for insiders, nerds, policy wonks, people like that. And people who are engaged in the community.

[00:06:39] How these processes work is the party will find one, two, maybe three people to run. You have to get a certain amount of signatures, you have to put in some money (it's usually a pretty significant amount of money), and so not just anybody can run for the nomination. Occasionally - and by occasionally I mean, more often than not, a party will have a preferred candidate. That doesn't necessarily mean that they will go out of their way to harm the other candidates, but it certainly means that they may particularly get resources from other well-staffed campaigns. And then those people will have to go into the community, the riding community, and find people to sign up for the party.

Conner Coles: [00:07:25] So what the provincial Tories do (which I think is a great strategy), is in 2018 they made their party membership free. And that just opens the door to greater access to democracy for party members and then [they] [can] go vote for (during a nomination meeting) their preferred candidate. Some parties, like the provincial [Ontario] Liberals, still [have] paid memberships, they have to still pay $10 to become a member and vote. [Note: The Federal Liberals do have a free “supporter” affiliation option, however it does not confer the right to vote during the party’s nomination races] So there are different systems that have different ways of operating with different levels of scrutiny, [and]different levels of interest. And so I would say that when it's go time - when it's the nomination meeting time - someone once described it to me as a family reunion where the whole town is invited, and it's just absolute chaos. You've got people on the phones calling people, trying to get people rides to come and vote. It is like a mad dash to try and get as many human beings through that door, and to vote for a candidate - ideally your preferred candidate. So you've got these two rival parties constantly on phones, sending out vans, buses,, pogo sticks - any mode of transportation they can possibly get to get individuals through that door [to vote].

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:08:43] Yeah. And what's interesting about nominations is each political party can do them slightly differently. They often do them on very different timelines. So [for] the same riding, the Liberal nomination might be four months before the election, and the Conservative one might be five months [before], and the NDP one might be on the same day as the Conservative one … each party is kind of doing their own thing. Can everyone only be a member of one party, and how is that even tracked?

Conner Coles: [00:09:13] I think the answer to a lot of these questions is: it's not tracked as well as it could be, or as it should be, and it's going to be a lot of my recommendation probably at the end of this piece. I know in 2018, for example—[and] again, I don't want to give the wrong impression that I'm a campaign lawyer. I'm not entirely well versed on every party's nomination policies, so I'll speak to the ones that I know best. But, an old colleague of mine in 2018 was a card carrying member of the Ontario Liberals, but when he saw that Doug Ford was a potential nominee for Ontario PC leadership, he signed up as a Tory and cast his vote. I think at this stage - at the nomination stage - it's very easy for people to get kind of lost in the system of who supports what party. And so again, speaking about foreign interference, this is where things can, among other things,  get a little wonky, where you'll find people can, or may try and, rig the results in a particular way. [But] we don't have to get into this right now, but… 

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:10:25] No, let's get into it! How does this happen?

Conner Coles: [00:10:29] Okay! There have been instances where people have claimed that multiple people have voted for the same person. There's a great scene in this 2002 Martin Scorsese film called Gangs of New York, where they're talking about New York electoral politics in the 1830s, and someone says, "they've already voted twice, so we'll shave their beards and get them to vote again" [The “voter fraud” scene from Gangs of New York is viewable on Youtube (viewer discretion is advised; prior dialogue contains racial slurs)].  It's that same kind of mentality of win at all costs because no one's really watching. And I think again, given that it's mostly politicos at this level, it's a little bit like the Wild West and I'm not super keen on that going forward.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:11:13] Yeah. Particularly when we think about things like [how] we have even fewer local journalists to go report on these kinds of things in a lot of ridings, so it seems really important that we have good safeguards for our democracy. Before we get into how we solve these problems, let's talk a little bit more about what foreign interference at the nomination level has looked like in Canada in the past. Do you have examples that you'd like to share?

Conner Coles: [00:11:40] I do. There's a story that's particularly - I think - pertinent to this podcast about the federal election in 2019 in Don Valley North, which is a riding just north of Toronto, where a gentleman by the name of Han Dong was accused by Global News after they received intelligence reports from [the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service)] (CSIS) that Han had received help from a foreign government [consult Global News’ piece titled, “Liberals ignored CSIS warning on 2019 candidate accused in Chinese interference probe: sources”]. And Han, who was never formally charged, will say he was "acquitted" by some federal investigators [Note: An Ontario Superior Court judge found no evidence to support Global News’ allegations against Mr. Dong]. But the intelligence reports, the raw intelligence reports from CSIS, claimed that the Chinese embassy, in Toronto, had threatened college students with revoking their visas if they did not go to the nomination and vote for Han [as reported on page 23, paragraph 2, of the Initial Report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions. Also, the Globe and Mail’s 2023 report on China’s strategy to influence Canada’s 2021 elections provides additional context and is based on classified CSIS reports that were verified by the newspaper]. That's a pretty extreme example, but there are absolutely other forms of interference that can be as simple as threats, particularly in diaspora communities where they may have family back home, in the old country, or particularly, in China, India and Iran [consult: Foreign Interference Is Targeting Diaspora Communities in Canada]. We've seen stories of embassies or just people on the street [who are] (in heavy air quotes) "definitely affiliated with foreign states", and they will say, "if you don't vote for our candidate, we will hurt [your] mom, [or] dad back home.

[00:13:06] Alternatively, there's a great example of the Tamil Tigers, an old terrorist organization that used to operate quite heavily in Canada, [and] used to threaten families into giving them money [and then] that money may then go to particular candidates [consult: Human Rights Watch has reported on the Tamil Tigers’ extortion of diaspora communities, including in Canada]. There are also more, what I would maybe call benign forms of foreign interference (if you can call it that), where again, diaspora groups would be more familiar with different forms of democracy in other countries where like a suitcase of money [is used] in order to convince a politician to follow [a certain] policy is more common.

Conner Coles: [00:13:48] So, for example, one of my old lobbying colleagues is a gentleman with ties to Pakistan. He claimed that at a nomination meeting there was a community group that came in and offered several hundred thousand dollars in campaign donations if the candidate agreed to do [some specific] thing. And my colleague advised, rightly, the candidate to not take that money, because that's not how things work here. Plus, that's just not allowed. There's different kinds of foreign interference, ultimately, that range from the violent to the less violent to the again, "benign", but no less damaging to the process, ultimately. And again, there's very, very little oversight. It's technically, again, according to my notes, it's technically not illegal to interfere in these sorts of processes. So it's like there's not only no guardrails, but there's also not any rails at all to speak of that are keeping this system intact. It's what I told one of my old colleagues - this is a purely vibes based system that we have in Canada at the moment that I think really needs to change.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:15:08] Yeah, and when we think about the people in those safe ridings who win the nomination and then they're essentially going to be in Parliament representing Canadians and voting and making laws—that's pretty essential to our democracy, [so] a "vibes only" approach doesn't seem great.

Conner Coles: [00:15:29] No it's not. It can often be quite off putting, I think, especially for new volunteers who want to be a part of, you know, the democratic process. And it's something that my old colleagues and I are constantly frustrated with is that we get these often younger people who we desperately need to come and be a part of the system. But the moment they see a nomination meeting, they see a sort of "win at all costs" mentality, especially within some ridings, it can be really disheartening. Especially when you come in with these high minded ideas of, "yeah, the system stinks, but you know, we can change it, we can make change. This is a great candidate." It can be really disheartening. And so I think not only from a big picture perspective [it] harms our democratic institutions, and like you said, makes us weaker or makes our policy positions weaker, makes us weaker on the global stage. [But also] just from a community perspective of getting young people involved in this thing we call politics, it can be just incredibly damaging.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:16:36] Yeah. I want to come back to the implications of foreign interference at the nomination level in a minute. But before we move on, I want to just kind of recap for the listeners a little bit. One of the big reasons that we think nomination contests being a target of foreign interference is a problem is because they are what CSIS called soft targets [as reported in paragraph 69 of the NSICOP Special Report on Foreign Interference in Canada’s Democratic Processes and Institutions]. Right? So these nomination levels are, as you mentioned, not really regulated by any provincial, territorial or federal regulators or regulations. We don't have anybody who's looking into whether or not bad stuff is happening, let alone have rules about what stuff is and isn't allowed to happen. It's this way of essentially interfering with an election without actually having to interfere in a real election, because nomination level stuff all occurs before an election. It's not part of the official election period, typically. The other thing I just wanted to mention is [that] you mentioned that [the] Don Valley North nomination contest is one of the examples, there's a few reports that have come out recently or in the past few years, and we're going to link to them in the show notes. We'll also link to a couple of other resources, but I thought I'd flag those because they are particularly timely and give a lot more details about that case.

Conner Coles: [00:17:58] Yeah. So in Don Valley North, just as a bit of a backgrounder, like I said, CSIS intelligence reports claimed that there were some irregularities in the Don Valley North nomination contest [as reported in the Global News article, “Liberals ignored CSIS warning on 2019 candidate accused in Chinese interference probe: sources” and discussed in the Initial Report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions]. And a lot of this is difficult for us, even though I'm what some people might call a campaign insider, it's tough to tell what CSIS is really saying because, obviously, the Security Intelligence Service [is] not exactly the most transparent organization on the planet. However, what I can say is, according to CSIS reports, the information they received, though [it] was not fully substantiated… (intelligence reports don't necessarily mean that it's true; an intelligence report could just mean a contact said something or said they saw something. So it's important here to remember that intelligence doesn't mean fact). So the information that CSIS [had] given to Global News, though it was not firmly substantiated, said that buses were used to bring international students to the nomination process in support of Han Dong. So buses were used to bring in international students to the nomination process to support Han. And so David Johnston, the former special rapporteur on foreign interference, said that the allegations were false. He also  wrote [on pages 23-24 of the First Report of the Independent Special Rapporteur  on Foreign Interference] that there was a, "well-grounded suspicion that the irregularities were tied to the P[eople’s] R[epublic of] C[hina] consulate in Toronto, with whom Mr. Dong maintains relationships".  And the CSIS intelligence also indicated that the students were provided with falsified documents to allow them to vote, despite not being residents of Don Valley North. And these documents were also allegedly provided by what's called a proxy agent, which is a fancy name for someone who is often locally based, so in-country, who works on behalf of a foreign government. [Consult also: Han Dong’s statement of anticipated evidence by the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions.]

Conner Coles: [00:20:04] So again, while Han's campaign manager told the Commission's lawyers that the campaign did not target international students because it's difficult to motivate people (and he's not wrong), this still happened, according to CSIS. So I think what's important here to recognize is even though Mr. Dong may or may not have actively or inactively solicited this help from the consulate, our adversaries are very interested in finding what CSIS and you rightly called the soft targets for foreign interference. There is one other thing I'd like to just mention here - that the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (or NSICOP), said about foreign interference,  that candidates can occasionally be witting or semi-witting partners with foreign governments. And they listed several examples, like communicating actively with foreign missions before or during a campaign, [or] accepting through willful blindness funds for providing foreign diplomatic officials with privileged information, [and] responding to requests of foreign officials [consult paragraph 164 of the NSICOP Special Report on Foreign Interference in Canada’s Democratic Processes and Institutions]. So there's lots of different ways that our adversaries can and will and do, I'll say, weasel their way in through the cracks a little bit, or in this case, maybe the chasms that exist within our system. You know, Han's example is a great one of a tangible action that we can see. But there's lots going on behind the scenes that we just don't know—the public just doesn't have access to, I should say—unless you're really following this stuff closely.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:21:49] Yeah, I think those are really great points that you bring up and it's really helpful also to identify who in a campaign is expected to know about potential foreign interference? And whose responsibility is it to be sure that isn't happening? And how do you do that? Right? The candidate doesn't necessarily know they are the preferred candidate of the People's Republic of China or India or wherever, right? [Or,] maybe they do, in which case that's another level of problematic. But the fact that these nomination contests have so many gaps, it means that you don't really have a good point at which you can be like, "Oh, that person is responsible for making sure this doesn't happen".

Conner Coles: [00:22:35] Yeah. We don't have a foreign interference guy on our campaign.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:22:38] Should campaigns have a foreign interference guy? Is that one of the things that we do?

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:24:32] Yeah, and politics isn't usually a game of doing things just because that would be nice. Usually we need to have rules and regulations in place to force parties to do the thing that is not as convenient but maybe really important for democracy. What does that look like? And who could do that? Do you have ideas there?

Conner Coles: [00:24:56] I do, actually. Well, I shouldn't say that I do. These are ideas that people much more intelligent than me have come up with. But I think two things are important to note here. One is [that] there's a Tory MP named Alex Ruff who has a private Member's bill that's just passed second reading in June, it's at the committee stage now [Note: this is Bill C-377 (44-1). For more information on what second reading and committee stage are, consult the House of Commons’ guide on Canada’s legislative process]. If passed, it would formalize the process for parliamentarians to request a security clearance from the Government of Canada. What that would do is it would not guarantee that MPs would receive clearance necessarily, but at least gives sitting MPs the opportunity to have a more complete picture of what's going on and how foreign interference can and does impact them. I referenced this earlier in the session by Michael Chong, another conservative MP, made a great point last night to journalists after he testified before the whole [Foreign Interference] Commission where he said [that] we need more transparency [A video of Mr. Chong’s testimony before the Commission is available on CPAC]. He allegedly found out that he was being targeted by China via the newspaper and not by the government [as discussed in the Politico article “Meet the Canadian lawmaker targeted by China”]—which, if that's true, that's appalling in my opinion. There are other challenges with security clearances that we can get into later, but I think it's really important that our lawmakers know what they're doing, [and] have a complete picture of what's happening on the ground. There are some concerns some people have raised about giving MPs who are, as NSICOP said, “witting or semi-witting opponents of foreign interference,” like, do we really want to be giving those people security clearances? Probably not, but I'm not sure what the middle ground is at the moment.

Conner Coles: [00:26:36] The other solution that NSICOP recommended that I think makes a lot of sense is regulating the political nomination process. I think that's just a no brainer. And it's clear that the tools in place are just not sufficient. The Canada Elections Act at the moment imposes administrative penalties on fundraising by a foreign entity, but we don't criminalize interfering in nominations or in any political party process. The government should just do so. There should be a criminal element to that, I believe. Similarly, I think parties need to either reduce or eliminate opportunities for foreign states to either directly or indirectly interfere in nomination processes by identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in their own systems and processes, like age and residency requirements, fundraising, things like that. So in short, we just need more tools to work with. And I get that it's very easy to not have as much political will to do this because parties are political animals. [But] this is very much a case of having to put country over party. And I'm not entirely confident that, barring an extreme circumstance—and maybe the whole Commission will change that—[parties will find this political will]. []At the moment, it seems like there's not a ton of interest.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:28:02] Yeah. And it's not just “put country over party,” it's also [that they need to] find resources to do this thing. Right? And when we're thinking about nomination level, there might be a preferred candidate who might have resources from the party. But there's also likely to be a variety of other candidates who probably don't have a whole bunch of resources. And if we want a democracy that is open and inviting to people to participate in and encourages more viewpoints and perspectives, putting a high bar in terms of resources needed to participate is not a great way of doing that. So finding ways to support the parties and candidates who really want to be able to make sure foreign interference is not impacting their campaign—it's a really tricky situation.

Conner Coles: [00:28:53] I completely agree. I think the only potential challenge I would foresee with that is [that] lowering the bar to entry means that parties have less money to play around with, which can be effectively damning for a campaign. Which again: huge problem. Because, like you rightly pointed out, the higher the bar for entry, the more likely someone may get desperate or will be more willing to find illicit ways to circumnavigate the process just to get a quick, you know, cool $2 million from another country. But we'd have to ensure that all parties are playing with the same rule set, if we did want to pursue that route. Which again, I think is a great idea; we just have to make sure that we've got the political will to do it in the first place.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:29:41] Yeah. Political will and then figuring out how to implement it…We've got pretty vague ideas of how to solve this and a really big problem.

Conner Coles: [00:29:51] Yeah.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:29:52] Unfortunately we don't have the time to just solve it entirely in this podcast episode, but I think we've done a good job of talking about the issues and why these nomination contests are such a soft target and an important target. Even though they are happening outside of an official election period, they still have this potential for massive impact. And I don't think this is the last of this conversation to be had. That said, we are coming up to time, so I wanted to end off with a final question here. This is where we do our little pop quiz. But it's an easy one because you've been thinking about this and you've been working in this space. When I say foreign interference at the nomination level, what does that mean? Can you give me [a] one liner of what foreign interference at the nomination level is?

Conner Coles: [00:30:42] Yes. In a sentence, it means: a foreign state or a state actor that has interfered in some form or function with a political nomination process by influencing the outcome in some form.

Elizabeth Dubois: [00:30:59] Amazing. Thank you. All right. That was our episode, looking at foreign interference at the nomination level. There is so much more to dig into, as I mentioned in that conversation with Conner. So please check out the show notes, head over to polcommtech.ca, [and] check out our transcripts which are annotated (they’re available in English and French). And, if you’ve got any feedback for us, you can always reach out at polcommtech.ca. Thanks. I also want to acknowledge that I am recording from the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin people, and I want to pay respect to the Algonquin people, acknowledging their long standing relationship with this unceded territory.