Legal action underway to force Canadian Forces to release propaganda documents

Article content

A professor is taking the Department of National Defence (DND) to court in an effort to force it to release records about the Canadian military’s program to target members of the public in various propaganda schemes.

The application for a judicial review was filed in federal court Sept. 27 in Vancouver on behalf of Emma Briant, an associate professor at Monash University in Australia and an expert in military propaganda.

Article content

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has already ruled that DND violated Briant’s rights for failing to disclose the documents.

The application filed in Vancouver is for the courts to review DND’s decision and is the next step in Briant’s efforts in trying to uncover the records about military’s propaganda schemes aimed at the Canadian public.

Briant declined to comment as the issue is now before the courts.

But her application to the federal court, contends that DND’s response to the her privacy request for records “misrepresented facts, misinterpreted the Act, and misled the Applicant. The Department responded with a series of positions and assertions that can only be described as the proverbial ‘run-around’. “

DND spokesperson Alex Tétreault said information on privacy requests can only be discussed with the individual making such a request. “We endeavour to respond to privacy requests as quickly as possible and in some cases there may be delays beyond the expected timelines,” he said in an email. “And we work to resolve these as quickly as possible.”

In 2020, Briant, writing for a non-governmental group called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, exposed details about the Canadian Armed Forces spending more than $1 million on training on how to modify public behaviour. That training was similar to that used by the parent firm of Cambridge Analytica, the company at the centre of a 2016 scandal in which personal data of Facebook users was provided to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s political campaign.

Article content

Around the same time, the Ottawa Citizen reported the Canadian military had tested new propaganda techniques during the COVID-19 pandemic and had concocted a plan to influence the public’s behaviour. A Canadian military intelligence unit monitored and collected information from people’s social media accounts in Ontario, claiming such data-mining was needed to help troops working in long-term care homes during the pandemic.

Other initiatives revealed by the Ottawa Citizen included military efforts to keep tabs on members of the public including those involved with the Black Lives Matter movement as well as a plan to use similar propaganda tactics to those employed against the Afghan population during the war in Afghanistan.

An internal investigation by the Canadian Forces determined that some of the efforts violated government rules but no military personnel were ever charged or disciplined.

Briant’s request for records, submitted in February, was prompted by efforts inside the Canadian Forces to deflect blame for a bungled propaganda exercise.

Article content

In October 2020, a military exercise involving creating fake letters about wolves on the loose, which caused panic in one community in Nova Scotia, was a propaganda test gone awry. It generated embarrassing news coverage across Canada and in some U.S. media outlets.

Despite knowing almost immediately the Canadian Forces was at fault for the wolf exercise debacle, some inside DND headquarters in Ottawa suggested trying to falsely label the incident as a creation of “Russian disinformation.”

One of the records Briant and the Ottawa Citizen obtained indicates that Canadian military public affairs officers were linked to a U.S. propaganda expert who tried to push the fabricated claim the Russians were behind the wolf letter.

The name of the woman who concocted that scheme was censored from the records. But her communications with Canadian Forces public affairs officers also appears aimed at trying to discredit Briant and her previous research.

Concerns about Russian and Chinese disinformation have reached a fever pitch in western nations in recent years, with various militaries and spy agencies sounding the alarm over such activities.

Article content

But western militaries and governments have also used claims of Russian disinformation in attempts to undercut media reports and the work of academics that they don’t like.

In his farewell speech in July, Gen. Wayne Eyre, then-chief of defence staff, claimed that retired and serving military personnel as well as other Canadians who have questioned diversity policies and the future direction of the Canadian Armed Forces were helping Russians undermine Canada.

The 2020 failed wolf propaganda campaign appeared to strike a chord with both the public and those inside DND.

The Canadian Armed Forces worried the public would link its previous efforts to test propaganda techniques during the pandemic to the bungled wolf exercise, according to records obtained earlier this year by the Ottawa Citizen.

Then Col. Stephanie Godin wrote Brig.-Gen. Jay Janzen on Oct. 16, 2020 warning that since the story about the fake wolf letters broke “there has been a resurgence of media and public criticism regarding perceived nefarious IO/IA (propaganda) against the Canadian public.”

Article content

She also noted how then-army commander Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre contacted Laurie-Anne Kempton, then the assistant deputy minister for public affairs at DND. Godin wrote that Eyre wanted to “discuss how the wolf letter issue could be removed from being conflated with” the $1-million training course on influence techniques that Briant had revealed as well as previous articles on military pandemic propaganda plans.

David Pugliese is an award-winning journalist covering Canadian Forces and military issues in Canada. To support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe

Article content