Tag Archive for: Canada

In 2024, a global anti-incumbent election wave

In a year in which political incumbents around the world were either voted out of office or forcibly removed from power, one statement, repeated in various forms by Mohammad Al Gergawi, the United Arab Emirates’ minister of cabinet affairs, stands out: ‘The role of government is to design a future which gives citizens hope.’ Looking ahead to 2025, political leaders should take this message to heart and shift their focus from constant crisis management to crafting a bold, hopeful agenda.

The global anti-incumbent wave has been breathtaking. In March, Senegalese President Macky Sall was decisively defeated after trying and failing to postpone the presidential election. In June, the African National Congress, which had ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid, lost its majority for the first time in three decades, forcing the party to form a coalition government. The same month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party also lost its parliamentary majority.

This trend continued through the summer and fall. In July, the Labour Party won Britain’s general election in a landslide, ending the Conservative Party’s 14-year rule. In October, Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority for the first time since 2009. Then, earlier this month, Michel Barnier became the first French prime minister to be ousted by a no-confidence vote since 1962. A few days later, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence, paving the way for an early election, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fired his finance minister, plunging his country into political uncertainty.

Other established leaders were ousted by popular uprisings. In August, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country aboard a military helicopter as protesters stormed her official residence. And Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was forced to flee to Russia after his regime collapsed in December.

Why are incumbents losing? One possible explanation is social media. Studies have shown that increased internet access often erodes trust in government and deepens political polarisation. In the United States, for example, Democratic and Republican-leaning voters have become increasingly polarised, with each side becoming more deeply entrenched in its partisanship.

Social media fosters connection between people who consume similar content, reinforcing their worldviews and amplifying the psychological effect known as ‘conformity’. Social media algorithms act as powerful megaphones for simple, emotionally charged messages, making these platforms fertile ground for conspiracy theories and fearmongering.

But while early evidence suggests that social media bolsters support for far-right populists, recent election results show that this is not always enough to gain power. In Mexico, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Britain, Japan and South Africa, incumbents or other mainstream parties won, albeit significantly weakened.

Consequently, one clear takeaway from this historic election year is that governments must learn to use social media more effectively. A good place to start is to engage directly with voters’ concerns. Earlier this year, two advisers to Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer visited the town of Grimsby in northeastern England and asked residents to describe the government in one word. The responses they received mirror what I have heard in many other countries: ‘irrelevant’, ‘authoritarian’, ‘distant’, ‘elitist’, ‘inaccessible’, ‘self-serving’, ‘unambitious’, ‘untrustworthy’, a ‘joke’.

Another major takeaway is that to restore trust, leaders should focus on economic growth and citizens’ empowerment. A comprehensive 2022 study of the political economy of populism highlights strong evidence that economic conditions, such as rising unemployment and cuts to social spending, have a profound impact on people’s views of government.

This helps explain why voters in Spain and Greece in 2023 and in Ireland this year chose to re-elect incumbent leaders, while French voters rejected the ruling party. In 2022, Spain’s economy grew by 5.7 percent and Greece’s by 6.2 percent. By contrast, in Germany, which will hold an early election after the government lost a parliamentary no-confidence vote, the economy shrank by 0.3 percent in 2023 and is expected to contract by 0.1 percent in 2024. France fared slightly better, with GDP projected to grow by 1.1 percent this year, after growing by 0.9 percent in 2023.

Beyond boosting short-term economic growth, political leaders must consider the future they are offering their citizens. Too many politicians’ and policymakers’ plans are limited to annual budget cycles and focused largely on cuts. Meanwhile, voters—grappling with rising living costs, post-pandemic austerity and a pervasive sense that they have lost control over their lives—need leaders who give them reasons for hope.

Budgetary constraints should not be an excuse for failing to envision a better future. Some of the boldest government initiatives have been conceived during times of economic hardship. Notable examples include US President Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, Britain’s postwar welfare state, Dubai’s post-1958 infrastructure boom and Singapore’s rapid development after 1959.

Political leaders must draw inspiration from these bold programs and be more ambitious in addressing the root causes of their citizens’ frustrations. The good news is that every country and community has creative individuals, in both the private and public sectors, whose work requires them to think ahead and plan for the future. Leaders must identify and reach out to such visionaries, who are rarely included in policy discussions, and leverage their expertise.

A politics of hope is essential to restoring faith in democratic institutions. In Grimsby, local residents said they longed for a politics that is ‘realistic’, ‘meaningful’, ‘passionate’, ‘hopeful’, and ‘empowering’. A government that can fulfill these aspirations will prove itself worthy of its citizens’ trust.

Lessons from the US on dealing with arbitrary detention

Australia has an opportunity to improve its responses to foreign arbitrary detention by studying the extensive and permanent apparatus that the United States has developed.

The Australian government last year established a special committee in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to handle complex consular cases, which will cover those in which Australians are arbitrarily detained. But Australia can go further, with two steps. It should implement a formal framework to identify and handle these cases, and it should establish a permanent office focused on them.

This would, for example, avoid the problems faced by the Australian-British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was arrested in Iran in 2018 on fabricated charges of espionage but whose case was treated as a mere consular matter and not identified as arbitrary arrest for several months. To secure Moore-Gilbert’s release, Australia had to facilitate the swapping of two Iranian prisoners held in Thailand. It was, indeed, a high-level diplomatic issue.

Arbitrary detention amounts to hostage diplomacy when the detaining state is trying to extract some concession from the detainee’s state or to punish it for something it has done. Chinese and Iranian cases have been clear examples of this. The Australian journalist Cheng Lei had been working for China’s state broadcaster CGTN when in 2020 she vanished from public view, detained by Chinese authorities on unspecified charges. This occurred at a time when China was punishing Australia for diplomatic action that had displeased it.

Months later, it was revealed that Cheng was being held under harsh ‘residential surveillance at a designated location’—a euphemism for a secret detention facility. After she had been held for nearly 19 months, she was tried in a closed session at the Beijing Number 2 People’s Intermediate Court, where Australian officials were denied access due to ‘national security’ concerns.

Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig faced a similar ordeal. The two Canadian citizens—a businessman and former diplomat, respectively—were detained in China in 2018 just days after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei. The message was clear: China wanted Canada to release Meng.

Recognising the danger of hostage diplomacy, Canada promoted the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations in 2021, which Australia has signed up to.

Like the setting up of the Complex Case Committee, that was a positive step for Australia, but the declaration’s non-binding nature raises doubts about its value. It cannot implement effective deterrence measures.

Australia needs to sharpen its strategy to be well prepared and take firm stands against instances of arbitrary detention. Above all, that means not leaving them languish in consular processes when they need fast and higher-level attention.

Hostage-taking states hide behind the veil of sovereignty, arguing that, under local laws, detainees are not wrongfully held. This is the challenge that must be overcome by establishing a framework for identifying cases, as the United States has done with its US Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-taking Accountability Act of 2020. Its criteria include availability of credible evidence of the detainee’s innocence, the possibility that the detaining country is trying to influence US policy, and a lack of an independent judiciary in that country.

Defining such a framework would be an early job for a dedicated office within the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The office would also handle the cases, with the effectiveness of a permanent and specialised agency, following the practice of the US Office the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA).

The less optimally Australia handles cases of arbitrary detention, the more emboldened are perpetrators. If not effectively handled, their malign behaviour may result in no negative consequences for them and, indeed, could reward them.

Australian diplomats should initiate discussions with their US counterparts to gain a better understanding of the SPEHA’s structure, function and achievements. Based on that knowledge, the department could tailor and model a separate dedicated office to best suit the specific needs of Australian citizens caught in arbitrary detention.

Now that state hostage-taking has become an established practice, Australia needs a well-founded and permanent mechanism for responding to it. Its great advantage is that the United States has already taken such steps. Australia just needs to look at the methods that Washington has adopted.

Australia’s leadership imperatives in critical minerals

Australia, like Canada, is well placed to be a global leader in the critical minerals sector. Our nation has the natural endowment, technical expertise and experience, global mining footprint, and mining capital base to back a claim to worldwide leadership. 

As advanced industrialised nations seek to diversify and strengthen supply chains for critical minerals, they need a well-coordinated, harmonised system that exploits market dynamics and targeted government intervention. Instead, critical minerals lists and strategies vary widely between nations, while a plethora of disconnected international agreements challenge coordination of development of new supply chains. 

Australia could well be key in resolving this challenge, if it can facilitate better international, domestic, governmental and private-public cooperation. 

A new ASPI Special Report, Reclaiming leadership: Australia and the global critical minerals race, finds that a tangled web of actions by like-minded producer and consumer nations, designed to facilitate new, secure and sustainable supply chains for critical minerals, threatens to fragment global efforts. 

Further, while Australia has become a party to many agreements and processes involving critical minerals supply chains, it has not yet shown how it will work beyond its shores with partner nations to develop a global network of supply chains involving other mineral producer countries as well as itself. Its current Critical Minerals Strategy focusses only on domestic production for supplying customer nations. 

Critical minerals are those which are essential to the global energy transition, high technology and defence and for which supply is at risk of disruption. Supply risk stems from the concentration of mining and processing of many critical minerals in the hands of just a few nations. This exposes supply chains to natural disasters, civil strife, regional conflict and withholding of sales for geopolitical reasons. 

New sources of production and processing, linked to customer nations by secure and sustainable supply chains, are needed to meet demand, particularly in industrialised economies such as the United States, Japan, Korea, Britain and European Union members. 

Analysis of lists of minerals deemed ‘critical’ by major consumer nations and by Canada and Australia, the two major suppliers apart from China, reveals fragmented classifications. Among more than 50 minerals that the countries variously identify as critical, only 13 are classified as such by all of them. 

Harmonisation of the disparate lists of minerals deemed critical is needed to provide the basis for more coordinated efforts to develop new supply chains. 

The main consumer countries plus Australia and Canada have concluded a web of agreements aimed at building new supply chains based in their own territory or in mineral-rich developing countries. For example, the US-led Minerals Security Partnership is resulting in new supply chains from Australia to the US as well as from others, including African countries. Australia’s role is to lend governance expertise and encourage investment to underpin sustainable production in third countries. Other agreements are similar. 

Most of the agreements have a common aim: to diversify and secure supply chains and ensure their sustainability from environmental, social and economic perspectives. 

But the sheer number of agreements and their tendency to compete with each other inhibits achievement of the objective. This seems to have been driven by geopolitical desires to sign agreements rather than getting on with implementation. 

Ideally, international agreements should be rationalised by number and content, with the aim of reducing complexity and achieving greater commonality and unity of purpose. 

In any case, the focus should be on practical collaboration to facilitate private sector investment in exploration and mining, and in particular, construction of additional processing capacity to reduce dependency on China and to develop more diverse, secure and sustainable supply chains. 

The Australian government and associated entities have signed on to 25 international agreements and processes. A 26th is now in negotiation with the European Union. Implementation of and compliance with this number of agreements will be very challenging for the government. Improbably, 16 of Australia’s critical minerals agreements involve the United States. While rationalisation of agreements may not be possible, a single Australian strategy to implement them is essential. 

Australia is well placed to expand its role as one of the major producers of critical minerals, with its world-leading minerals endowment and strong credentials in environmental, social and governance (ESG) processes. The Australian government’s participation in so many critical minerals agreements and processes shows it is enthusiastically pursuing opportunities for exports and inward investment. It and most state governments are encouraging domestic critical minerals exploration, mining and processing, with incentives including financial support. 

Australia’s influence over critical minerals supply chains extends well beyond its borders, however. While it hosts the largest critical minerals industry of any nation apart from China, companies based in Australia or listed on its stock exchange have a huge global footprint. S&P Global data shows their 2023 critical minerals exploration expenditure outside Australia totalled US$739 million, more than double what they spent in Australia. Of 109 critical minerals mining and processing operations owned by Australian companies, nearly half are outside Australia. 

This footprint reflects the technology, skill and experience deployed by Australian explorers and miners, which enable them to succeed in all operating environments, including those that are particularly challenging in terms of geology, governance and social and environmental impacts. 

The Australian government should ensure it has a clear picture of the activities of Australian minerals companies’ operations overseas and their success factors. It should formulate strategies to encourage their investment in other nations and contribute to global supply chains. 

At least 12 of the agreements to which Australia is party include commitments to work with partners to develop a matrix of supply chains involving both developed nations like Australia and mineral-rich developing nations such as in Africa and Latin America. The object is to secure a reliable and sustainable stream of critical minerals to customer Australia’s strategic partnersnations. 

Australia’s worldwide footprint, ESG record and international agreements create both an opportunity and an obligation to extend its critical minerals strategy to include facilitation of global supply chains.  

Its Critical Minerals Strategy therefore should be revised to reflect the commitments it has made, encourage overseas investment by its companies, and set out domestic and international strategies and actions for achieving global supply chain objectives. 

Common to most international agreements is the objective to make new, more diverse supply chains sustainable and hence more secure. This means ensuring that new supplier nations, many of which are developing countries, have the capacity to govern mineral production soundly and ensure high ESG performance. Many agreements therefore include commitments by developed producer and consumer nations to provide technical support and capacity-building in governance.   

To provide quality control, however, supply chain partners should develop common sustainability and security standards and establish auditable certification for partner nations and corporate suppliers. 

How Australia responds to these leadership imperatives in critical minerals will not only determine economic benefits to the nation but will also impact the world’s ability to achieve the minerals security and the sustainability required for the global energy transition and inclusive economic growth.

Australia should learn from Canada and take a truly global approach to critical minerals

Canada and Australia are key players in the global supply chain for critical minerals. Simultaneously the top two nations for receiving minerals investment and for providing minerals investment, they are perfectly placed to use critical minerals to facilitate the global energy transition, foster innovation and build their security capabilities.

Accordingly, both have released critical minerals strategies in the past year. They have also concluded agreements with each other and other like-minded jurisdictions, including the US, EU and UK, to cooperate in the development of robust critical-mineral supply chains.

Australia’s strategy, released in June 2023, is similar in most respects to its Canadian counterpart, released in December 2022.

Both adopt supply-chain approaches, but Canberra’s strategy is focused exclusively on Australia providing upstream components like exploration, drilling and extraction. Only the discussion of downstream elements, such as processing, is partner oriented.

Ottawa, on the other hand, takes a global view of the upstream and downstream components of supply chains, and considers Canada’s role throughout. It wants to develop supply chains from within Canada that connect to friendly economies, but also support sustainable supply chains that originate in other nations.

The Canadian strategy is consistent with the government’s longstanding view of the mining industry comprising activity within Canada’s borders as well as that of Canadian companies abroad.

The S&P Global database reveals that Canada ranks first in the world in exploration investment for all minerals, and 57% of that investment in 2022 ($7.9 billion) was spent outside Canada. This gives Canada a huge influence over the discovery and development of critical minerals worldwide. Its 2019 minerals and metals plan acknowledges this by naming ‘global leadership’ as one of its six strategic directions, and both it and the 2022 critical minerals strategy emphasise Canadian mining as leading sustainable development in minerals overseas, notably in developing economies.

Despite being the second largest global investor in exploration, Australia has taken an inward-looking approach. This is at odds with the global profile of the Australian minerals sector, which has large investments and extensive activities on every inhabited continent.

Of the 1,151 Australian exploration and mining companies identified by S&P Global, 856 operate in Australia and 428 operate in other parts of the world. Some operate in both. In 2022, more than a third of their combined $4.7 billion exploration budgets was spent outside Australia.

These companies operate 2,861 projects around the world: 1,953 in Australia and 908 overseas. Of these projects, 444 involving 282 companies have critical minerals as their primary commodities, with 241 such projects based in Australia and 203 outside Australia.

The reserves of critical minerals identified by these operations so far are valued at $1.815 trillion, $949 billion of which is in Australia and $866 billion outside Australia.

To October 2023, capital expenditure in Australian-operated critical minerals projects totalled $32 billion in Australia and $45 billion in other countries.

With such a massive stake in critical minerals, Australia needs to diversify from its domestic focus and adopt a truly global supply-chain strategy for critical minerals. One of its strategy’s objectives is to ‘create diverse, resilient and sustainable supply chains through strong and secure international partnerships’ and Australia’s critical minerals investment data makes a compelling case for greater collaboration, including upstream in other mineral-producer nations.

Australia’s allies are being sold short by its inward focus. This could be a missed opportunity to leverage formidable Australian investment, expertise and technology globally.

Like Canada, Australia has a responsibility to help developing countries apply strong sustainability frameworks to their production of critical minerals. Australian industry is being let down by poor government recognition of, and support for, its truly global reach.

This narrow view is not a new phenomenon. It has persisted under successive Australian governments, which until recent years didn’t even have a detailed picture of Australia’s global investment profile across all sectors, including mining. With incomplete information, governments focused almost exclusively on inward investment.

The exception was a period during the Rudd and Gillard governments in the early 2010s, when Australia expanded its economic diplomacy in Africa, Latin America and Asia. It focused on minerals-related trade and investment and supporting sound governance in these regions.

In fact, Australia has long used its aid program to quietly support developing countries to build their capacity to attract minerals investment and responsibly govern exploration and development. Australia recently provided funding to ASEAN nations to review their minerals cooperation action plan, and the Australian high commission in Ghana convened a mine security conference in September to help mining operations in western Africa meet emerging threats. And Australia has committed to working with other supplier nations in regions like Africa under the US-led minerals security partnership, which it joined in 2022.

Building on work like this, Australia should take a global view of minerals investment. It can invest in supplying critical minerals to like-minded nations while still supporting the sustainable development of these minerals in emerging economies.

Despite Australia’s short-sightedness, there’s much to recommend in both the Australian and Canadian strategies. Both strategies:

  • emphasise the role each economy can play in creating more diverse and robust global supply chains
  • prioritise developing their northern regions, which host much of their critical minerals
  • recognise the need to build infrastructure that unlocks opportunities for minerals development, particularly in remote areas
  • acknowledge that the participation of land-connected Indigenous peoples is necessary
  • note that a larger and more diverse skilled workforce is needed to support growth
  • detail the strong environmental, social and governance frameworks required to develop critical minerals with minimal footprint.

To add to these strengths, Australia should support the discovery and development of critical minerals deposits by Australian companies wherever they operate. This will nurture global supply chains between supplier, intermediate and customer economies, and make a much greater contribution to the global energy transition and security than taking a narrow, Australia-only upstream approach.

CCP using information operations to harass Canadian politicians

Amid Canada’s public inquiry into foreign interference, the Chinese Communist Party is deploying inauthentic personas on social media and extending its influence operations into the Canadian online environment.

ASPI has identified a cross-platform, coordinated network of inauthentic social media accounts spreading disinformation about Canadian politicians, mostly targeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. These accounts claim that Canadian politicians are corrupt, philanderers or liars and have used deepfake technology to falsely attribute these allegations to Liu Xin, a political ‘vlogger’ (video blogger) of Chinese heritage based in Canada. Some family members and associates of Canadian politicians are also being targeted through this new campaign.

ASPI assesses that this network is highly likely a new iteration of the Spamouflage network, which has been linked to Chinese government-affiliated entities numerous times. If that’s correct, it would be the first publicly unearthed example of the CCP using an AI-enabled face swap in its internationally focused information operations and disinformation campaigns.

As part of the new campaign, a subnetwork of accounts is promoting an article published by Red Maple News, an influential Chinese-Canadian online media outlet. The article launders personal—and publicly unavailable—information to defame Teacher Li, a pseudonym for a Chinese painter based in Italy.

Beginning on 7 August, around 2,000 inauthentic social media accounts published more than 15,000 posts in English, French and Mandarin on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube targeting at least 50 Canadian politicians from both major political parties, the Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of Canada. The campaign appears to have subsided since 11 September, four days after the Canadian government’s announcement of a public inquiry into foreign interference. At the time of writing, the network continues to target Liu.

The most common modus operandi of these accounts is to flood replies under both the official and personal social media accounts of Canadian politicians. On X, sometimes the only replies to a politician’s tweet are from inauthentic accounts in the network. The majority of these tweet replies contain disinformation. A strategy of this information operation is to try to draw online users’ attention to claims that, for example, Canadian politicians are corrupt, racist or having extramarital affairs.

The families and associates of Canadian politicians have also been dragged into this activity. This includes posts alleging that the politicians were neglecting their family members, that they fathered illegitimate children or that their children’s sexual orientation was uncertain. Often the phrases used in these posts indicate that the accounts’ operators are most likely non-native English speakers or have used automatic translation services. For example, one post claimed that a politician was engaging in ‘sex transactions’.

In another case, accounts targeting Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s environment and climate change minister, blended an old photo of him being arrested with a sentence outlining his pro-environmental positions and claiming that he reviews the ‘pornhub [a pornography website] web browsing history of every taxpayer in Canada’.

Figure 1: Screenshots of Spamouflage accounts targeting Canadian politicians

Trudeau appears to be the primary target of this operation and is mentioned in at least 4,152 posts (around 25% of all posts). Under Trudeau’s social media posts, accounts in this network spread claims that he is a ‘liar’, a ‘rapist’ and is ‘embezzling’ public funds. On X, accounts also post links to YouTube videos about Trudeau uploaded by other inauthentic YouTube accounts associated with this network. One of these YouTube videos, which attracted over 100 views, shows Liu saying that Trudeau ‘loves pornography’ and repeating a known conspiracy theory that Trudeau paid a ‘wealthy businessman’ to cover up sexual relations with an underage girl.

ASPI assesses that this video is likely the first publicly unearthed example of a sophisticated deepfake audio and face swap commissioned by this network, commonly known as Spamouflage by the research community. The video attempts to use Liu’s face and voice to spread disinformation about Trudeau. It features a common backdrop that Liu uses, but the audio and video slightly differ slightly from Liu’s usual videos. At around 23 and 28 seconds in, the chin of the potentially AI-imposed face is misaligned with the underlying face. Other considerations, such as the fake face lacking the facial expressions, skin blemishes and wrinkles of Liu’s actual face when he speaks in his videos, further suggest that this video has been manipulated. The audio and editing are of poor quality and the video glitches at the 26-second timestamp. Liu has also never uploaded a similar video about Trudeau to his YouTube channel.

Figure 2: Screenshots of deepfake video on the left and in the middle, with screenshots of Liu Xin’s real face and video on the right as a comparison

ASPI assesses that this new coordinated network of inauthentic accounts targeting Canadian politicians and their families, as well as Liu, are very likely linked to the Chinese government. For example, accounts tend to post between Beijing’s 9 am to 9 pm business hours, a common tell of the Spamouflage network. The accounts’ timelines also reveal that some of them were involved in previous CCP influence operations. As an example, one account named Esther Walter that is targeting Justin Trudeau and Liu has previously posted disinformation about Japan’s Fukushima treated wastewater discharge and replied to accounts using the #weatherweapon hashtag, which has been used in connection with a conspiracy story that the Hawaiian wildfires were engineered by the US military. Both of these narratives have previously been co-opted by CCP-linked influence operations on social media, according to ASPI and NewsGuard research. According to ASPI research, a US Department of Justice unsealed complaint and Meta’s latest quarterly report, there’s evidence that this network is partly associated with China’s Ministry of Public Security.

Like with many CCP information operations, most posts in this latest campaign have had zero or minimal engagement with real users. The post with the most engagements appears to have only interacted with other inauthentic accounts in the network and failed to break out of this community. However, it’s difficult to measure the specific impact of such operations given that their intent remains ambiguous. In this case, the CCP is likely aiming to harass and intimidate, rather than attract major engagement. This type of digital transnational repression has become a growing focus for the CCP and continues to be used; for example, bespoke harassment and disinformation campaigns have targeted Asian women based in the US, UK and Australia working in journalism, human rights activism and think tanks. In the case of Liu, and in addition to attempts to intimidate and silence him, the new campaign might also be trying to shape Canadian politicians’ perceptions of him, as well as seeking to undermine his work and public reputation.

It’s important to note that while Liu is the target of this campaign, he has spread unverified claims on his X and YouTube channels as well. On 8 October, Liu uploaded a Mandarin-language video on his ‘Lao Deng’ (老灯) YouTube channel and, a day later, an English-language tweet that spread unverified claims of the CCP assassinating the Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar to frame India and create discord between India and the West. This story has been disseminated by Indian media outlets, without context or critical examination of the source.

In the second part of this investigation, to be published later today, we show how Spamouflage accounts bolster CCP united front work in Canada. This provides evidence of CCP online and offline influence operations being coordinated and mutually reinforcing.

Update: Global Affairs Canada has released a statement about this activity that cites ASPI’s work and makes the same attribution.

Canada’s new Indo-Pacific strategy is clear-eyed on China

The Canadian government released its highly anticipated Indo-Pacific strategy last weekend. It commits the government to spending C$2.3 billion over five years to expand Canada’s military, security, trade and diplomatic ties with Indo-Pacific countries and views the region as globally important.

The strategy examines economic opportunities and strategic challenges and outlines five strategic objectives centring on peace and security, trade, investment, sustainability (including a green future) and Canadian engagement as an active partner to the Indo-Pacific.

A relatively long section is devoted to the threats (and opportunities) coming from China. There’s also a section on India, which is portrayed primarily as a democratic friend that offers significant trade diversification and investment opportunities.

Significantly, the document identifies China as an ‘increasingly disruptive global power’, but also carefully differentiates between ‘the actions of the current Chinese government, with whom we have differences, and the Chinese people’. It directly addresses Beijing’s unpredictability and aggression with explicit descriptions of the geopolitical risks many Indo-Pacific nations now face from China. At the same time, Ottawa proposes to cooperate with Beijing to help address climate change, biodiversity loss, global health and nuclear proliferation.

The document is also explicit in its support of Taiwan and the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans and other ethnic and religious minorities. It demonstrates that Canada is committed to being a reliable partner to the countries in the region and, notably, states: ‘In areas of profound disagreement, we will challenge China, including when it engages in coercive behaviour—economic or otherwise—ignores human rights obligations or undermines our own national security interests and those of partners in the region.’

The strategy was three years in development, and strongly reflects the changes that Ottawa has experienced and witnessed in Beijing’s behaviour. During that time, Canada went from being friendly with China to recognising that the China of today is not the China of 2015—when Justin Trudeau came to power hoping for a free trade agreement and closer relations. President Xi Jinping’s use of ‘wolf warrior’ tactics against Canada and other nations, along with China’s unpredictable business practices towards foreign companies, have made Beijing increasingly difficult to engage with.

Canada’s relationship with China has been tested in various ways as Beijing has increasingly asserted itself at the global, multilateral and bilateral levels. Canada’s primary values and allegiances, especially with the US and other Five Eyes partners, have been constantly challenged.

At last month’s G20 summit in Bali, Xi was filmed chiding Trudeau for allegedly releasing information to the media about a ‘private’ discussion they’d had. While it was hardly a wolf-warrior exchange, the incident illustrates the soured relations between the two countries, particularly since Canada’s arrest in 2018 of Meng Wanzhou, then chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. China reciprocated by spuriously arresting the ‘two Michaels’ (Spavor and Kovrig) and giving a sentence of execution to Robert Schellenberg, now being appealed. During this period, Canada has unsuccessfully sought rapprochement with China.

By its own admission, the new strategy reflects a more ‘clear-eyed’ view of dealing with China. Canada conducted extensive consultations with Indo-Pacific nations about the strategy’s composition, and Canada’s domestic constituents have expressed a variety of views on the subject. Getting all the stars aligned was undoubtedly challenging.

Overall, the strategy offers a comprehensive, coherent plan for Canada’s Indo-Pacific engagement, with funding attached to core objectives. The previous ‘strategy’ relied on a combination of ministerial press releases and tag lines from prime ministerial or ministerial statements made in parliament. It had no coordinated framework or associated funding, thus lacking substance.

The new strategy articulates Canada’s primary values and interests with clarity, encompassing a ‘whole-of-society approach’ requiring involvement of Canadians from every sector. This is no small ambition, with objectives set to match the region’s future opportunities and challenges. The strategy describes it as a ‘once-in-a-generation global shift that requires a generational Canadian response’.

Importantly, the strategy commits resources—including C$492.9 million in increased defence commitments such as the deployment of an additional frigate to the region. Ottawa will also provide nearly C$227 million to expand the capacity of Canadian intelligence and cybersecurity agencies to work closely with partners in the Indo-Pacific and protect Canadians from attempts by foreign states to influence them covertly or coercively. Other initiatives include a fund to support ocean management and investments to support disaster risk and resilience, for science and technology collaborations and to enhance partnerships with ASEAN.

The strategy states that Canada will work with its allies ‘to push back against any unilateral actions that threaten the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, as well as the East and South China Seas’. Canada has recently joined the Blue Pacific initiative in support of the Pacific islands, and has applied to join the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. Canada has also offered to contribute to AUKUS through the partnership’s technology working group, as many of its targeted technologies are significant strengths of Canada.

This is no superficial strategy. Beijing’s bullying and well-documented coercive actions towards its neighbours and towards Canada have caused Indo-Pacific nations to band together to find ways to deal with this more aggressive, authoritarian power. The strategy signals the emergence of a new narrative on Ottawa’s engagement in the region. Canada now has a coherent approach reflecting its sovereign interests and liberal democratic values and aligning with its allies and partners. This new strategy can serve as a model for other countries, including Australia, that don’t yet have a comprehensive Indo-Pacific strategy.

A new focus on nation-building in Australia and Canada

Just as the world was heading towards a post-Covid-19 phase, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provided another major disruption of international relations.

While the West was quick to impose economic sanctions, their long-term implications and whether they’ll curb Russia’s aggression remain uncertain. China’s support for Russia raises further questions about Beijing’s intentions regarding Taiwan.

In addition to great-power competition, Covid-19 and climate change, nations are living with the flaws of half a century of economic globalisation. Moving from one global crisis to another, states are increasingly looking inwards as they attempt to navigate a new world that places the post–Cold War geopolitical order in jeopardy.

Despite the vast geographic distance between Canada and Australia, they face similar issues in the heightened geostrategic significance of their northern regions, which are central to both nations’ resilience as first lines of economic, social and security defence.

The north of each country is sparsely populated, rich in natural resources, subject to wild weather variations and geostrategically significant, and both have indigenous communities challenged by economic, social and health issues. Economic responses are often outdated and ineffective.

During the Cold War, Canada’s north was key strategic terrain, while northern Australia was considered a strategic backwater. Their significance has aligned in recent years and a reinvigorated focus on nation-building is required for both to cement themselves as influential and prosperous multi-partner social, economic and national security hubs.

Australia hasn’t pursued ambitious nation-building since the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme (begun in 1949 and completed in 1974), the Ord River Irrigation Scheme (1959–1963) and the Burdekin Falls Dam (1984–1987). These projects were conceptualised to deliver enduring economic and social benefits beyond the construction phase.

The big thinking of the past has given way to a narrower view of nation-building focused on the road and rail infrastructure connecting urban centres—and arguably an ill-founded belief in the market’s ability to deliver nation-building by default.

Of greater concern is that Australia is yet to appreciate the significance of nation-building as a geostrategic strength, particularly when we consider northern Australia’s strategic location and the potential for greater forward basing by Australian and allied forces, and for enhanced economic and trade relations with partners, including Canada.

But Australia’s north faces many challenges. We continue to accept disruption there as the norm, as when the highway and rail line connecting Darwin with Australia’s southern states was flooded for weeks. Remote and Indigenous communities were cut off and ran short of food. Road trains carrying perishable items had to take a 3,000-kilometre detour to deliver supplies.

We need to build and upgrade highways to withstand expected weather conditions. Not doing so is akin to treating the north like a developing nation—providing just enough focus and investment to achieve subsistence but not enough to drive economic prosperity, resilience and security.

A contemporary approach to nation-building rejects outdated thinking and invests in infrastructure that meets the challenges of harsh climates, creates social infrastructure and builds social capital to improve the economy, resilience and security.

But reconceptualising nation-building requires focused cross-government and cross-sector collaboration and investment. Such an approach would better position Australia to deliver on its AUKUS and Quad commitments, further enhancing relationships and positioning Australia as an equal partner rather than simply a convenient regional location.

This represents a big change from where we are today. The federal election is imminent, but we’re yet to see any shift in thinking from a ‘road and rail’ nation-building focus. This is perhaps not surprising; today, governments are no longer in the nation-building driver’s seat to the same extent as those in the past. Increasingly, industry and entrepreneurs capture our imagination with a vision of a future that’s more prosperous, cohesive and secure.

The Canadian experience is similar, but recent events give it a sharper edge. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Canadians have again become uncomfortably aware of their large and sparsely-populated northern territories straddling the Arctic Ocean and seemingly detached from their buzzing urban centres in the south. A lack of north–south infrastructure underlines the disconnection between the population in the south and the numerous, largely indigenous, communities in the north.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tasked Infrastructure and Communities Minister Catherine McKenna with creating a ‘National Infrastructure Fund to seek out and support major nation-building projects that will benefit people across various regions’. An example provided is the Newfoundland and Labrador Fixed Transportation Link.

Canada’s nation-building fund follows a similar theme to Australia’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, which was established in 2016 to provide development finance for infrastructure projects.

Traditionally, Canadians tended to see large-scale and pan-Canadian projects such as the Trans-Canada highway, the Canadian Pacific Railway and the St Lawrence Seaway as nation-building infrastructure projects of the past. However, in 2021, McKenna stated that the concept has gained a new meaning: ‘It’s not just about railway, bridges and ports. It’s public transit, cycling paths and electric vehicles that help us get around in [a] faster, cleaner and affordable way.’ That may be a broader focus, but it’s still an urban one.

As one of us pointed out recently, ‘Nation-building doesn’t sit well within political agendas because of short-term thinking often driven by election cycles.’ The West’s nation-building efforts in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan may have helped position nation-building unfavourably. Thus, the renewed political gaze towards the concept of nation-building reflects the public taste for large-scale infrastructure projects that have been lacking due to funding and time constraints.

This renewed political focus on infrastructure is very important to the Canadian north and Arctic given the Russian invasion of Ukraine and reinforces the significance of the Canadian Northern Corridor research program to investigate the ‘feasibility and desirability of establishing permissible corridors in Canada’. Being acutely aware of the difficulties of placing a potentially 7,000-kilometre-long northern corridor ‘on top of the Trans-Canada highway’, the research is focused on the challenges and desires of northern and indigenous communities across Canada’s provinces and territories. Taking a local perspective on large-scale infrastructure development corresponds directly with the current federal vision of nation-building infrastructure.

Nation-building in Canada faces serious scrutiny from scholars who raise awareness of the troubled relationship between the Crown and indigenous peoples, including the Inuit. The Canadian government has formally defined its relationship with Canada’s indigenous peoples in a set of principles. The document states: ‘The Government is committed to achieving reconciliation with Indigenous peoples through a renewed, nation-to-nation, government-to-government, and Inuit–Crown relationship based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership as the foundation for transformative change.’

Northern infrastructure development is closely related to defence and sovereignty, and northern indigenous peoples offer strong local knowledge. In 2019, the Senate of Canada noted that infrastructure was a key asset for strong Arctic communities, which in turn are ‘vital to enhance Canada’s ability to project its Arctic foreign policy, including sovereignty in the region’.

In January 2022, the federal government offered a C$592 million contract to an Inuit-owned company, Nasittuq, to maintain the Northwest Warning System, a remnant of the Cold War that remains an important defence mechanism. The contract places the indigenous peoples of Inuit Nunangat in a key role in the defence and security of Canada’s northern and Arctic territories.

The challenges in Australia’s and Canada’s northern regions present synergies from which both countries can learn and potential avenues for bolstering their economic, social and geostrategic strengths. There are great opportunities for those Australians and Canadians seeking to nation-build, not just to jointly admire the problems, but to share lessons and innovation and to draw inspiration.

The digital government agenda North America needs

In Ukraine today and in many other conflicts around the world, the digital domain has become a battleground for cyberattacks and information warfare. Even in normal daily life, digital platforms can endanger citizens and democracies by encroaching on individual privacy, manipulating consumer attention, fostering social isolation and nurturing extremism. But, while not downplaying these harms, we should also remind ourselves of the many good things that today’s new technologies offer.

One key digital benefit is the potential for vastly improving the delivery of government services. Estonia, where citizens can vote, pay taxes, check their medical records, apply for loans or register new businesses online in a matter of minutes, is the poster child. North American countries are much further behind, but the Covid-19 pandemic has created opportunities for them to catch up.

Although pandemic-related lockdowns and office closures have caused a host of bureaucratic ills—including long delays in the delivery of some benefits—they also accelerated the development of digital public services. In the United States, all levels of government have introduced digital tools, from holding court proceedings via videoconference to launching virtual-education programs across the country.

US state governments that had already invested in cloud capabilities were able to switch to teleworking, enabling rapid establishment of call centres, remote access to business applications and swift distribution of unemployment benefits. Governments at all levels also worked with volunteer technology initiatives, such as US Digital Response, to set up digital services quickly in a wide range of areas, including public health, food assistance, voting, volunteering and small-business support.

Canada and Mexico were similarly innovative. The Canadian federal government rapidly developed a secure Covid-19 exposure notification service and launched the Find Financial Help During Covid-19 website, which Canadians have used more than two million times. It also introduced GC Notify, which integrates email and text-message notifications for government services.

In Mexico, the federal government launched digital initiatives early in the pandemic that offered direct access to epidemiological healthcare data and self-diagnosis tools. State and city governments implemented SMS services to provide key public-health information to those without broadband access. Private platforms born during the pandemic, like URBEM from Cívica Digital, are now helping governments digitise their procedures and services so that citizens can access them remotely.

Such examples of innovation in digital government in Canada, Mexico and the US point to opportunities to forge a regional agenda to position North America as a global leader in the field. These opportunities should take advantage of the region’s growing data ecosystem and place people at the centre of service provision. The goal should be to foster cooperation at the national level and offer subnational governments the opportunity to collaborate and share best practices on open platforms.

The basis for this effort already exists. All three countries are members of the Open Government Partnership, which commits participants to increasing transparency, accountability and participation through a variety of means, including digital innovation. And all three governments have pledged to promote the Open Contracting Data Standard, an initiative that relies mainly on digital tools to foster access to information and public participation in government procurement.

Above all, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2020, establishes a clear basis for digital integration across North America. Chapter 19 of the agreement focuses on digital trade; Article 19.14 commits the parties to ‘exchange information and share experiences on regulations, policies, enforcement and compliance’ relating to protection of personal information, security in electronic communications, authentication and ‘government use of digital tools and technologies to achieve better government performance’.

Article 19.18 goes further, laying the groundwork for collaboration on open government data. It explicitly recognises that ‘facilitating public access to and use of government information fosters economic and social development, competitiveness and innovation’. In addition, it commits the parties to cooperate to identify ways they can expand access to data that they have made public, with a particular focus on generating business opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Such a statement of intent has historical parallels. In 1951, France, West Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries established the European Coal and Steel Community, which laid the foundation for the ensuing decades of economic and political integration that resulted in the creation of the European Union. North America will undoubtedly chart its own path towards a different vision of continental integration, but a regional digital development agenda that begins with greatly improved government services would be a good start.

As US President Joe Biden’s administration has stated, the primary mission of any government is to serve the public. Canada, Mexico and the US can learn from one another how to use digital technology and public-sector reform to serve their citizens better. Improving the provision of government services is essential to building public trust in government, which is worryingly low in the US—particularly at the federal level—and is critical for preserving healthy democracies.

The US has traditionally looked east and west rather than north and south in setting its foreign-policy priorities. But, amid what Biden has described as a global struggle between democracies and autocracies, the countries of North America have a chance to strengthen their democracies individually and collectively. They have already established a foundation for digital cooperation. Now they need to build on it.

Canada’s joint declaration against arbitrary detention needs teeth

On 15 February, Canada launched the ‘Declaration against arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations’. The statement was endorsed by 59 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom.

While the declaration doesn’t specify any particular state responsible for these actions, it’s widely believed to be tied to Canada’s ongoing efforts to free two of its citizens, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, from arbitrary detention in China. Spavor and Kovrig were detained in China on 10 December 2018, one week after Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada pursuant to its extradition treaty with the US. While the two Canadians were eventually charged with spying (more than 18 months after they were arrested), the thinly veiled rationale for their detention is to apply pressure on the Canadian government to interfere in the legal process Meng is currently subject to.

The detention of Spavor and Kovrig is just one of 152 cases of coercive diplomacy by the Chinese Communist Party in the last 10 years, as tracked in an ASPI report I co-wrote in September. The report demonstrates the significant rise in the CCP’s use of coercive diplomacy since 2018, a trajectory that is likely to continue unless target states respond in a coordinated and joint manner.

One of the main findings of the report was that it’s in the CCP’s interests to isolate countries when it applies coercive measures. Until recently, states subjected to CCP coercion have undermined their own interests by responding bilaterally. Unsurprisingly, the use of coercive diplomacy against them has continued.

Canada’s approach to the fallout with China over the Meng case illustrates this point perfectly. Up to now, the Canadian government hadn’t taken any direct action against the CCP in response to the arrests of Kovrig and Spavor (beyond condemning the behaviour), likely in an attempt to avoid any further escalation. Yet the situation continued to escalate anyway, with trade and tourism restrictions enforced throughout 2019, and three Canadian citizens sentenced to death in China since the arrest of Meng.

While a number of Canada’s allies condemned the CCP’s actions, these responses lacked coordination (for example, the Australian government took three weeks to release a statement expressing its ‘concerns’ over the Canadians’ detention), which ultimately sent a clear message to the CCP that Canada was on its own (as was Australia, which had its own citizens arbitrarily arrested in China).

A lot has changed in the past three years. Canada’s lead on the joint declaration is the mark of a new direction for the government in response to the CCP’s coercive tactics, and the number of supporting signatures ‘reflects a deepening global frustration with the tactics of authoritarian regimes’. The harnessing of this international political pressure will likely have more of an impact than the content of the declaration.

The practice of arbitrary detention already violates a number of international human rights laws, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, so declaring the illegality of the CCP’s actions will be less effective than applying international political pressure.

The CCP is already working on flipping the narrative surrounding the declaration to its advantage on the Meng dispute. Although the CCP is yet to formally respond to the declaration, the party’s mouth-piece the Global Times has already fired off a number of articles accusing Canada (and the West more generally) of hypocrisy.

The CCP has long maintained the farce that the continued detention of the two Canadians has no relation to Meng’s case, and has in turn accused Canada of partaking in ‘hostage diplomacy’. This is despite the fact that on 24 June, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian directly linked the two cases. In a statement translated into English, Zhao said that the release of Meng, through Ottawa’s intervention in the extradition proceedings, ‘could open up space for resolution to the situation of the two Canadians’.

It’s clear that the work the Canadian government has put into the declaration is far from finished. As Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek warned, ‘For this initiative to succeed, we need as many signatories as possible.’ To be effective, the declaration must be complemented by enforcement measures to give it teeth. The declaration as it stands is a non-binding instrument, and steps should be made towards formalising it into a treaty—as Canada did when it took the lead in the campaign against landmines, which also started out as a declaration.

A treaty based on the declaration condemning arbitrary detention would amount to the coordinated joint pushback against the CCP that Canada, and all other target states, have needed from the beginning.

The opioid problem in Australia: connecting the dots

With many drug users making the shift from heroin to methamphetamine and crystal methamphetamine (‘ice’) over the past decade, Australians know there’s an addiction problem here that could become significantly worse.

Increasing use of synthetic opioids in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States has caused devastation and death. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime says the number of opioid deaths in Canada and the US doubled between 2013 and 2017.

The information available indicates that Australia’s likely to follow down that deadly path. Knowing what the landscape looks like ahead will make us better prepared to deal with what’s coming.

The rapid increase in the use of synthetic opioids, especially fentanyl, has been identified in the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission’s 2018 and 2019 wastewater monitoring reports, research by the Australian National University and the most recent Pennington Institute report on overdose deaths. The ABC has confirmed how easy it is to purchase fentanyl and its precursors online. That’s no surprise to those who’ve watched this occur in Canada and the US over the past five years.

This ease of access to fentanyl, even in small amounts, should be of serious concern to Australians. The redirection of legal fentanyl into the illegal drug market is a serious enough problem, but in the US and Canada that was quickly followed by the large-scale illicit manufacturing of synthetic versions. That’s a wake-up call for Australia.

ANU researchers said access to ingredients through the dark web should be a great concern. The profitability of the illicit opioid market has never been greater. The US Drug Enforcement Agency estimates that it costs between US$1,500 and US$3,000 to produce a kilo of pure fentanyl. Turning that kilo into millions of dollars is easy for an enterprising manufacturer.

The DEA found that each tablet in a shipment of counterfeit oxycodone tablets it discovered contained between 0.03 to 1.99 milligrams of fentanyl. A kilogram of pure fentanyl could provide a million counterfeit tablets worth US$10–20 each on the street. Such a lucrative market will not go away easily or quietly. When investing a few thousand dollars can produce a financial reward in the millions, that far outweighs the risk for the trafficker.

In 2017, an Australian Bureau of Statistics report tallied 1,808 drug-induced deaths in Australia in the previous year. The top four substances involved in death were benzodiazepines (such as Valium), opioids (such as oxycodone), methamphetamines and heroin, in that order. That report was a warning that the death toll would continue to climb, that current and previous drug strategies had not been effective, and that new and innovative thinking was required.

The abuse of opioids, both legal and illegal, has been a problem in Australia for decades.

An internal memo released as part of a civil suit against Purdue Pharma indicated that it was seeing illegal use and abuse of its legal synthetic opioids in Australia in the late 1990s. In 2016, the NSW Coroner identified a wave of increased overdose deaths among heroin users and suggested that it was similar to a pattern seen in other countries where heroin had been laced with street-grade fentanyl.

It’s clear from attempts to combat the illegal drug trade in Australia, Canada and the US that the traditional ‘attack the trafficker’ model can’t succeed on its own.

Until there’s a shift in focus from the supply to the demand side of illegal drug use, we’ll suffer the same fate as other countries that are plagued by addiction.

Doing nothing is not an option—but nor should be continuing on the same path and failing once again.

The drug threat is changing, and it will get worse before it gets better. Australia must decide how to respond with the greatest effect.

Arguably, Australia’s law enforcement community could not be more successful in attacking the supply of illegal drugs into and within the country, with record seizures, charges and convictions. But the price of illegal drugs is steadily decreasing despite this success. The police are meeting their key performance indicators and deserve praise for their diligence, but they also stress that attacking the supply chain isn’t enough and needs to be combined with an aggressive strategy to reduce the demand for drugs.

The government and law enforcement are already putting their best efforts into reducing supplies, but to make a serious impact on illegal drugs they would need to at least triple the number of seizures, charges and convictions, and that’s neither a realistic nor a financially viable option. Australia needs an aggressive strategy for reducing demand if we’re to have an opportunity for any level of success.

A strategy to reduce demand must focus on the addict. The increased use of synthetic opioids will result in an increase in overdose deaths. Preventing that will require a pill-testing program, access to opioid replacement therapy, greater access to naloxone to treat overdoses and a strong education program. The strategic rollout of naloxone nasal spray and the provision of training in its use to emergency services personnel will help Australia get ahead of the curve. Jurisdictions like Canada saw many preventable deaths before such action was taken.

Opioid replacement therapy must include methadone (daily use) and Buvidal (monthly use) programs to stop the craving often felt by addicts so that they can move towards a normal lifestyle. Pilot projects allowing diamorphine or a similar opioid replacement therapy should be seriously considered. This is often referred to as a medical heroin replacement, but it allows an addict to become stabilised and to move from a high-risk to a lower-risk lifestyle.

Australia can make the greatest difference through a strong and thorough education program targeting high-risk opioid users, recreational drug users and non-using but at-risk youth. As a lifesaving tool, it will help educate users about what we’re seeing elsewhere and make them aware that their regular supplies may be tainted by ‘basement grade’ fentanyl that could cause an overdose. Their increased understanding could persuade them to reduce their drug use and, sometimes, to look for alternatives.

Recreational users need to be warned about the potential for serious harm or death if they buy what looks like a legitimate oxycodone tablet which turns out to be a counterfeit cut with fentanyl. In Canada, cocaine, ecstasy and other drugs have included fentanyl without any knowledge of the purchaser.

Australia can get ahead of this looming problem—but we need to act now.