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With Canada facing not one but two possible sovereignty referendums in the coming years, the head of the country\u2019s spy agency is bracing for the possibility that foreign adversaries could try to meddle in them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely have to be attentive to the possibility of information operations or interference,\u201d Dan Rogers, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told CBC\u2019s Power & Politics on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Rogers was responding to questions about the prospect of referendums in both Alberta and Quebec on the issue of independence and emerging concerns<\/a> that foreign adversaries could see them as fertile ground to interfere with a G7 country.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n He said CSIS doesn’t have a role in “Canadians exercising their opinion” but agreed the manipulation of information could be a vulnerability.<\/p>\n Rogers says anytime foreign adversaries seek to divide Canadians and amplify certain narratives is a concern for the spy agency.<\/p>\n \u201cOur core job is looking at threats to the security of Canada, which includes foreign interference,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to position ourselves to be able to identify those intentions and actions by foreign states.\u201d<\/p>\n The sovereigntist Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois is pushing forward with a plan to hold a referendum if it forms government in next year\u2019s election.\u00a0<\/p>\n The party has launched two referendums on Quebec sovereignty \u2014 in 1980 and 1995 \u2014 and lost both. Leader St-Pierre Plamondon, who so far is leading in public polling, has promised to hold a third by 2030 if he\u2019s delivered a win by voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alberta is also in the throes of a heated debate on whether it should separate. Earlier this year Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s government reduced the number of required signatures to hold a referendum in the province.<\/p>\n WATCH | Albertans rally for independence: Thousands of Albertans rally in support of independence from Canada<\/p>\n The push for Alberta’s independence got a big boost this weekend. Thousands rallied in Edmonton to raise awareness of the movement and a referendum question that would ask citizens if Alberta should be a sovereign country. Sam Samson spoke with some of them. <\/p>\n Smith has said she wants a sovereign Alberta to stay within Canada but also says there is a growing number of Albertans who are unhappy with Confederation. <\/p>\n Concerns about foreign adversaries meddling in referendums largely stem from allegations that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 Brexit referendum.<\/p>\n Rogers sat down with Power & Politics after delivering his first annual speech, in which he warned of both China and Russia\u2019s \u201csignificant intelligence interest\u201d in the Arctic.\u00a0<\/p>\n China, he said, is seeking an economic foothold in the region, while Russia’s Arctic posture “remains unpredictable and aggressive.”<\/p>\n China also continues to target Canada’s sensitive information.<\/p>\n “Chinese spies have tried to recruit Canadians with access to government plans, intentions, information and military expertise, through social media and online job platforms,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-263897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763191934_446_default.jpg\")
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