OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says it is likely that malign foreign actors will meddle in Canada's federal election in October.
In fact, she says it is likely that efforts have already been made by foreign entities to disrupt Canada's democracy.
"I think our judgment is interference is very likely and we think there has probably already been efforts by malign foreign actors to disrupt our democracy," Freeland said Friday in France, while attending a G7 ministers' meeting.
The G7 is seized with the issue of foreign meddling in democratic countries, and Freeland made the issue a top priority when Canada hosted the bloc last year.
She did not specifically mention Russia, but there were widespread reports about that country interfering in Ukraine's recent presidential election.
Canada has a lot to learn from countries like Ukraine, which is seen as a veritable laboratory for malign Russian cyber-meddling and disinformation, Freeland said.
"What I think we're seeing is something that is happening in many liberal democracies. The effort is not so much to secure a particular outcome in an election," she said.
"The effort is to make our societies more polarized and to make us, as citizens of democracies, more cynical about the very idea that democracy exits and that it can work. So we're very mindful of it."
The Ukrainian ambassador to Canada has told The Canadian Press that their country's critical infrastructure and digital election infrastructure was hit with daily cyberattacks from Russia during the recent campaign.
Ukraine continues to cope with Russia's annexation of its southern Crimea region in 2014, and the continuing unrest in its eastern Donbass region by a pro-Russian rebellion.
Former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, who led a team of 160 independent Canadian monitors to Ukraine, has said the country was able to withstand Russian cyber-meddling, but its more conventional military forces kept more than a million voters from the polls in Ukraine's Crimea region and its eastern regions.
Canada will also host an international conference on Ukraine's economy and political reforms in July that will include foreign ministers from the European Union, the G7 and NATO countries.