The federal body established to protect Canada’s electoral process will be monitoring the Liberal Party of Canada’s leadership campaign for possible foreign interference as the race to replace Justin Trudeau gets underway.
The Security and Intelligence Threats to Election Task Force (SITE) was established in 2019 and includes representatives of CSIS, the RCMP, Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment, the country’s signals intelligence agency.
Since May 2023, SITE has been active for the 10 byelections that have occurred and tasked with producing public reports about observations of any foreign interference directed at these votes, and Nathalie Drouin, deputy clerk of the Privy Council, said it would do so again.
The announcement comes amid concerns that foreign interference could come into play as the Liberals look to name their first leader since 2013 when Trudeau took the reins.
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Dennis Molinaro, a professor at Ontario Tech University and former security analyst with the federal government, told Global News last …