Nomination races are a 'gateway' for foreign interference — is anyone doing anything about it?

Two landmark reports have flagged federal nomination races as «particularly vulnerable» to foreign interference and a «gateway» for meddling by foreign states — but the parties have shown little interest to date in making changes.

Earlier this month, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) — a cross-partisan committee of MPs and senators — released a heavily redacted document detailing how foreign interference is infiltrating Canadian politics.

Liberal MP David McGuinty, chair of the committee, said nomination contests and leadership races are a «critical gap» and an avenue for foreign interference.

«We came face to face with the troubling intelligence that nomination processes and leadership races are particularly vulnerable to foreign interference,» he told a Senate committee last week.

As his committee's report noted, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) considers the process for nominating candidates to run for federal office «a particularly soft target for several reasons.»

For starters, says the NSICOP report, many ridings are considered «safe seats,» so clinching the nomination can secure a seat without the foreign state having to interfere in the election itself.

The report points out that each political party has its own rules and requirements for participating in a nomination contest, such as a minimum age or residency requirement, or payment of a party membership fee.

Some parties also allow non-citizens to register as party members and vote in a nomination, as long as they live in the riding.

«CSIS assesses that it is relatively easy to fraudulently add voters who live outside a riding to a nomination process's voter list with inaccurate addresses,» says the NSICOP