Military campaign to influence public opinion continued after defence chief shut it down

Portions of a military information campaign meant to influence the Canadian public during the COVID-19 pandemic continued to operate monthsafter the chief of thedefence staff at the timeordered itshut down in the spring of 2020, CBC News has learned.

The Canadian military recentlyconducted four reviews of controversial initiatives. A copy of one of those reviewswas obtained by CBC News under access to information legislation.

That review showsthateven after the then-chief of the defence staff,Jonathan Vance, verbally called off the overall influencecampaign in April 2020, some influence activities aimed at Canadians carried on for another six months until Vance issued a written edict in November 2020.

"The public affairs, [civil-military cooperation] and influence activities that were taking place, particularly within [Joint Task Force Central], did not stop," says the review document,which looked at the origins of the influence campaign.

The review's conclusionis significant because Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan assured Parliament last year that the activities were halted almost immediately after they got underway. But avariety of problematic initiatives carried on for months after Sajjanmade his statement, including a propaganda training exercise involving fake wolves in Nova Scotia.

Thereview document obtained by CBC Newsfound that public affairs staff and members of the military's Civil Military Cooperation section (CIMIC)didn't catch the "ambiguity" and didn't see the "obvious link" between what they were doing and what Vance saw as a violation of federal rules.

According to a directive released Wednesday by acting chief of the defence staffLt.-Gen. Wayne Eyreand Sajjan's deputy ministerJody Thomas, the military deployedpropaganda techniques in Canada without approval during the pandemic and gathered information about Canadians' onlineactivitieswithout permission from authorities.

The directive fromEyre andThomasconcedes that the militarywent too far.

"Notwithstanding the best intentions of some members, errors conducted during domestic operations and training, and sometimes insular mindsets at various echelons, have eroded public confidence in the institution," reads the directive signed by Eyre and Thomas on June 9.

Eyre sent the directive to top military and civilian leaders on Wednesday after CBC News asked theDepartment of National Defence (DND) why the results of the reviews all completed at varying times over the last seven months stillhad not been made public.

DND saidit neededtime to look at the results collectively and will release all of the findings in the "coming week or so."

That timing coincides with Parliament's summer recess and the reviews'findings could get lost in the noise of a fall election, if one is called.

DND insists it hasn't used 'psyops' on Canadians

The Ottawa Citizen first reported on the directive Thursday and has written a series of groundbreaking stories about the Canadian military'suse of information operationsduring the pandemic.

The military is permitted to run psychological operations while deployed abroad butit is prohibited from doing so in Canada without specific permission from the federal cabinet.

DND insists the activities undertaken to monitor and shape public discourse as it related to the pandemic did not constitute psychological operations.

In fact,DND denies it has used psychological warfare techniques, honed during the Afghan war, on Canadians. But the line between psychological warfare and information operation campaigns has become increasingly blurry over the last few years.

The directivesigned by Eyre and Thomasreminds commanders that "no domestic military operation" in the informational environment should be directed at Canadian citizens.

Consultation 'minimal and hurried'

The reviewdocument obtained by CBC Newssaysthe Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC), which was being led by Lt.-Gen. Mike RouleauinApril 2020, "liberally interpreted" departmentpolicy. The unit decided it had the authority to conduct information operations on Canadians without government approval because it was asked by the government to help with the response to the pandemic.

The review document says that, instead of gettingpermission from DNDor Vance, CJOC "liberally interpreted" a policy on information operations in Canada.

The review documentconcludes thatCJOC's consultation was "initially minimal and hurried." It saysthat only after concerns were raised by the assistant deputy minister of public affairs staffdidthe unit consultpeople elsewhere in DNDheadquarters. When the matter came beforeVance, he shut down the operations, says the review.

Even though CJOC'sinformation operations were orderedshut down,the CJOC order launching the operations"enabled a chain of decisions and problematic activities at lower echelons that caused reputational damage to DND/CAF," saysthe directive.

The reviewsfound information operations were conducted on Canadians without approvaland "unsanctioned" reports were produced aimed at monitoring Canadians' activities online.

The Ottawa Citizen reported last year that a specialized intelligence team scoured people's social media accounts in Ontario, claiming it was to help the military's work at long-term care homes hit hard by the pandemic. The data obtained through that workwereshared with the Ontario government, the newspaper said.

"Further, teams contravened requirements by not conducting risk assessments prior to conducting activities on the Internet and they collected Canadian citizen information without our explicit direction," the directive says.

Crying wolf

The military launched another investigationafter a reserveunit specializing in information warfare conducted a propaganda training exercise in September,2020 inNova Scotiainvolving a fake letter warning of grey wolves wandering around.

The military apologized and called the exercise a mistake but even if it was inadvertent, it did amount to apsychological operation used on Canadians to influence their mindsets. Many Nova Scotians believed wolves were on the loose and the province'sLand and Forestry department had to respond publicly,saying the warning was fake.

"These reviews again concluded that members and leaders lacked formal training, policies governing PSYOPS were not well understood, and adequate control measures were not in place for this type of training," says the directive from Eyre andThomas.

The directivesays "it is clear" that various information operation tools the military is deploying in Canada "have suffered from a lack of institution-wide" direction to ensure the appropriate authorityand oversight are in place.