So

last thing then, you mentioned that we maybe don't take this as seriously as the United States does. What would we do if we really wanted to get serious about it? And also, like, is it kind of too late? Like, this stuff is everywhere now.

Yeah, it is everywhere. And I'm not convinced that we're going to easily put the toothpaste back in the tube, as it were. But I think that people are allowed to have their sincerely held beliefs, right? I don't want to sit here and come across saying anyone who tweets stuff that's pro-Russia is immediately either being paid by Putin or a useful idiot or completely delusional. Like people come to their own conclusions. I mean, there are, I mean, maybe I disagree with it, but, you know, there are reasons to question, like, should we be sending military support overseas to conflicts and things like this? Like these are legit criticisms that should be raised in a democratic government. But where there are these indicators of support, I would love to see more charges, more investigations. In Canada, we're not good at this. We have heard, particularly in the Foreign Interference Inquiry, which is happening right now, that the RCMP is struggling, right, to kind of manage the investigations. And there are structural reasons in the RCMP why this is the case that are probably a little too long for this podcast, but we really need to improve it. And we saw this past summer the passing of a bill bill c70 which is going to create a foreign interference transparency registry which is a good thing but it also doesn't cover what happened here right because the foreign influence transparency registry will only cover those individuals who may be influencing or speaking with government these individuals were not speaking to government they were speaking to the wider Canadian press. So we also may have to have a conversation about what kind of transparency do we want around these kinds of activities and that if foreign countries are providing money to make podcasts at $100,000 a pop, that might be something we need to talk about. But is that then an unreasonable restriction on media freedom? It's not an easy issue, but certainly I think talking about these cases also does help generate more awareness. But we need more cases to talk about it if we want that more awareness. So it really is upon our law enforcement and intelligence and national security agencies to step up and do more, as they've been granted a lot of the powers they've been asking for this past summer. I

guess we'll see what they do with that in the next few months and years. Thanks, Steph. Thank

you.

Stephanie Carvin of the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs, author of Stand on Guard. That was The Big Story. For more from us, including previous conversations with Stephanie, you can head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. You can always shoot us feedback or suggestions for future episodes by emailing hello at thebigstorypodcast.ca or by calling us at 416-935 and leaving a voicemail. The Big Story is available everywhere. You get podcasts and in your smart speaker when you ask it to play The Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Jordan Heath-Rawlings. We'll talk tomorrow.