Chinese-backed ‘Camouflage’ campaign targets Canadian politicians, including Trudeau

According to CTV News, a campaign known as ‘Spamouflage’ linked to China has reportedly targeted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a number of other Canadian MPs.

During this campaign, the bot network leaves thousands of comments on its social media accounts making malicious claims.

However, despite the situation, the Canadian government is not acting hard enough to take further action on this “Spamouflage” campaign, as reported by CTV News.

According to a statement from Global Affairs Canada (GAC), the federal government’s “Rapid Response Mechanism” (RRM) detected the campaign, which it says refers to the People’s Republic of China.

The campaign started at the beginning of August and “accelerated” during the long weekend in September. It targeted lawmakers across the country and across the political spectrum, posting comments in both English and French on their Facebook and “X” accounts, CTV News reported.

A flood of messages claimed that a critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Canada had accused the targeted MPs of criminal and ethical violations, including the “probable use” of deepfake videos, according to the Canadian government’s RRM.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and several ministers were also targeted, but nothing the GAC found would jeopardize their security, the ministry said.

Liberal MP Omar Alghabra told reporters that the government informed him that he was one of the MPs targeted.

The former transportation secretary said he received an email assuring him there was “no immediate threat,” but beyond that he had little information on how that estimate was reached, CTV News reported.

Alghabra said she received repeated social media messages from different names and handles directing her followers to see what a person in Vancouver said about her that she was “corrupt and involved in corruption.”

“It was sent repeatedly… It clearly looked like spam, it looked like spam to me at the time. And now I know it was organized,” CTV News quoted Alghabra as saying.

Meanwhile, “Spamouflage is a tactic that uses networks of new or hijacked social media accounts to send and amplify propaganda messages across multiple platforms,” according to the Canadian government.

The team, which monitors online spaces for foreign state-sponsored disinformation, said this campaign was likely aimed at defaming and disparaging MPs in the eyes of the average user with organic posts alleging impropriety by using a popular Chinese-speaking character and silence. CTV News reports CCP criticism by pressuring lawmakers to distance themselves from the critic, while preventing other online communities from associating with that person.

Speaking to reporters, Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said Canadian cybersecurity experts are working to determine the extent to which Canadian government officials may have been targeted.

The same botnets have also been used to spread disinformation in the past, and GAC said after contacting Meta and “X” to make the platforms aware of the latest activity, much of it can be removed.

In August, the same foreign surveillance system revealed that it had detected an “intelligence operation” targeting Conservative MP Michael Chong’s Chinese WeChat instant messaging service.

In a statement to CTV News, Chong said the current Liberal government – which created the RRM – has not done enough to protect Canadians on Canadian soil from “threats from authoritarian governments.”

“From foreign police stations operating here illegally to meddling in our elections, these foreign threats of harassment have disproportionately targeted diaspora communities. It’s time for the Trudeau government to put the safety of Canadians first,” CTV News quoted the conservative foreign affairs critic as saying.

In the meantime, affected parliamentarians have been offered a briefing with federal officials about their findings, and all MPs have been briefed on the campaign and given advice on how to protect themselves.

The GAC has said it will continue to monitor the matter for future incidents, as such campaigns can undermine Canadian democracy and discourage MPs and members of diaspora communities from speaking out.

However, Monday’s release gives no indication that the Canadian government plans to take further action over this “Spamouflage” campaign, as a public investigation into foreign interference by China and other state actors is underway, CTV News reported.