Juno News - Secret military report WARNS against digital IDs and currencies

00:00:00.000 After a year-long legal fight, Juno News has obtained a sensitive military report

00:00:10.420 warning that Canada is at risk of becoming a digital police state.

00:00:15.440 Analysis by military intelligence found what many of us have long suspected,

00:00:20.820 that things like digital ID and central bank digital currencies

00:00:24.660 are among the tools used by countries like China to control their citizens.

00:00:30.000 If so, why is our own government pushing Canada in the same direction?

00:00:35.420 When the Liberal government froze the bank accounts of Freedom Convoy supporters,

00:00:40.240 Canadians got a glimpse of life in a digital prison.

00:00:43.700 Could that have been just a taste of what's to come?

00:00:46.120 The report speaks of a potential threat to civil liberties posed by smart cities,

00:00:53.260 facial recognition, and artificial intelligence.

00:00:56.080 technologies in and of themselves may not be bad, but in the wrong hands, they could destroy our

00:01:02.680 freedoms over time. Faced with mass opposition to their policies, governments will be tempted

00:01:10.300 to use these technologies for surveillance, espionage, propaganda, and coercion. And the

00:01:16.420 fear they incite in society could cause citizens to self-censor, which is one of the most effective

00:01:23.180 ways of shutting down speech that the government doesn't like. Our guest today is Joe Varner,

00:01:29.480 senior fellow at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute. Welcome, Joe.

00:01:33.660 Great to be with you, Mark.

00:01:35.080 Let's talk a little bit about this report. You've had a glimpse of it. What do you think?

00:01:40.640 Well, I saw the report. It looks like it was done by military intelligence. They were likely

00:01:47.220 surveilling or looking at uh chinese and russian activities in in the surveillance of their citizen

00:01:54.900 space and i'm not sure what the purpose would have been to do that but but the military the

00:02:04.340 canadian forces intelligence command does do uh pieces on on foreign governments and

00:02:12.180 and foreign activities as it relates to security and and canadian national security

00:02:19.300 so it looks like things i saw was bullet point 16 in which is talked about canada's diplomatic

00:02:26.100 missions in countries where you've got things like smart cities and surveillance is you know

00:02:32.900 everywhere and when governments use these technologies to control their own people

00:02:38.580 it tends to put our own diplomats at risk by way of things like espionage

00:02:44.420 is that a concern do you think for canada absolutely there are certain countries in

00:02:50.340 the world china and russia uh iran north korea a number of countries in the global south that use

00:02:57.540 digital infrastructure, AI, and, you know, smart cities to control their civil populace

00:03:13.100 and to monitor their activities.

00:03:15.980 So, you know, Canadians traveling abroad should be aware.

00:03:21.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:03:22.160 Especially with facial wreck and so forth.

00:03:24.260 I mean, we saw what happened with the two Michaels, you know.

00:03:27.540 They ended up in prison, which was largely seen, at least in Canada's side, that it was retribution for what happened with the Huawei CEO and all of that got really ugly.

00:03:40.380 But if you happen to be in China and you know you're constantly being surveilled, then you know that potentially you're a target by a government that doesn't have much respect for civil rights at all.

00:03:53.160 And so I think Canadians should be aware of that, traveling to China.

00:03:57.540 But did the tone of the report, I mean, do you have any thoughts about the overall warning?

00:04:03.720 You know, is it odd, somebody with your background, military analysis and so forth, for the military to come forth with a warning of this kind?

00:04:12.840 Did that surprise you?

00:04:15.340 What I took from it was it was likely probably a warning to our diplomats abroad and probably to our defense attaches abroad.

00:04:24.440 Um, you know, CSIS is domestically focused, uh, CSE is, uh, focused on signals and electronic

00:04:33.300 intelligence.

00:04:34.580 Uh, so, so in the case of the Canadian forces, they were probably looking at the security

00:04:39.900 emissions abroad in, in particular countries is kind of my guess.

00:04:44.500 Um, but what I would say is, uh, the analysis would probably turn up in, in reports from

00:04:54.220 different think tanks. So Cato Institution in the United States, the IISS in London has done

00:05:02.900 some work in this area. There are several pieces of open source material that you could access

00:05:09.840 in the popular media that looks at these technologies and their dangers to privacy

00:05:16.700 and to citizens. The government really kicked up a fuss on releasing it. In fact, they only

00:05:23.220 released a small part of it. There's a lot of information around this issue that they have not

00:05:28.900 released. I mean, does it surprise you that they would be so adamant about holding on to this

00:05:35.800 particular report? I mean, why not release it to the public? Yeah, I suspect that there is

00:05:41.720 information there that they don't want us to see, and for good reason, because it points to where

00:05:47.720 the intelligence comes from. And that's always the danger, you know, when releasing intelligence

00:05:53.260 reports and documents is that it allows our opponents or, you know, our enemies to determine

00:06:01.280 where the intelligence came from and what the source is. And that, you know, if it's a human

00:06:06.880 source is a danger to that source abroad. Could it embarrass some of our rivals, 0.69

00:06:13.960 countries like china and russia i mean i think russia is probably used to this sort of thing but 1.00

00:06:19.660 we've seen the chinese are particularly touchy about this sort of thing and i noticed there's

00:06:24.300 no reference to the americans being a threat it speaks specifically to authoritarian regimes

00:06:31.200 like china you know is it possible that the government didn't want to upset china and they

00:06:39.380 realize that releasing this might just do that? Yeah, well, China is the most heavily surveilled

00:06:45.860 civilian population in the world. I think they have like 200 million cameras, which is like

00:06:52.520 one camera for every seven people in China. And Russia is following suit, following the

00:07:02.040 Chinese example. I suspect you're absolutely dead on in the assessment that the government did not

00:07:08.360 want to rile the Chinese while they're doing their Pacific trade pivot, as dangerous as I

00:07:17.040 think that is. But I think that that is absolutely one of the reasons that they probably wanted to 0.99

00:07:22.360 keep it secret. Well, crime is up. Repeat offenders are released on bail. Police responses

00:07:28.980 are slower than ever. And in many places, law-abiding citizens are expected to just hope

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00:08:14.980 special offers. Make sure that you're prepared. It's better to be safe than sorry. Yeah, and it's

00:08:23.360 out of the bag now, so I don't know if they're going to raise the issue or with our own diplomatic

00:08:31.880 corps, whether they're going to push back on this or just maybe stay silent. But I can't believe for

00:08:38.680 a minute that they're going to be very appreciative of the fact that we have kind of focused on them 0.82

00:08:44.700 as well as the Russians. But I think the Chinese are so far ahead of the Russians when it comes to 0.83

00:08:49.120 surveillance and technology and so forth. It's hard to see the Russians really on the same

00:08:54.380 playing field. It's really the Chinese. They're the experts at all this. And I guess the not so 1.00

00:09:02.640 subtle concern here is that we actually like what the Chinese are doing in terms of the way that 1.00

00:09:09.360 they're controlling their own population. And I would draw your attention to what took place 0.95

00:09:14.020 during the Freedom Convoy, where we used digital means to seize assets, to freeze bank accounts

00:09:22.420 belonging to people who paid into to support the convoy.

00:09:28.860 Mind you, many of the names were doxed by a certain individual who made those names

00:09:34.920 public of those who may have supported the convoy.

00:09:39.800 But I think we got a glimpse of what life looks like under one of these surveillance states with what happened with the convoy.

00:09:47.960 What do you think?

00:09:49.460 Yeah, I don't think that there's any doubt that the rules in democracy matter.

00:09:53.500 And when technology is used to, you know, surveil a citizen and even seize the bank account, it's problematic in democracy.

00:10:08.600 I think the other side of this is that, you know, these systems open a whole new vulnerability in terms of hacking and cyber attack and foreign countries gathering intelligence on individuals in Canada.

00:10:26.080 So, I mean, I think this cuts both ways. It's a way of maintaining surveillance of your domestic security and your citizenry, but it also opens you up to hacking and cyber attack and theft of very valuable information by foreign entities.

00:10:45.540 And it encourages self-censorship, doesn't it? That's one of the things that the report speaks

00:10:51.940 about is, you know, you put these measures in place, you essentially scare people into shutting

00:10:58.160 up and not to, you know, so that they don't criticize the government, don't criticize your

00:11:04.180 policies. And I think that's one of the elements here that they raised. And I can't help but think

00:11:10.720 that's an effective way to shut down your critics well it is and i mean you know there are studies

00:11:17.120 now on on how uh authoritarian states use social media uh to uh punish uh dissidents and uh

00:11:28.640 their opposition in country and so you know self-censorship in some places in the world

00:11:35.600 becomes a method of survival and you you have to make make those choices and we've seen similar

00:11:42.880 situations in canada where we see people that are let's say champions of the jewish community or

00:11:49.520 israel being uh silenced or attempted to be silenced by uh different uh groups that support

00:11:58.400 either iran or or the houthis or hezbollah you know this is this is we're seeing it every day

00:12:07.040 and there are some people that are you know noted for being under this kind of scrutiny

00:12:11.680 and having to protect their their uh their person and and their their personal security

00:12:18.320 yeah the report talks about propaganda and coercion among the tools that are used i mean those have

00:12:24.400 have been around forever. But I can't help but look at our own situation in Canada and see

00:12:29.760 a media that has largely been bought off by the government. We've got so many hundreds of

00:12:37.340 millions funneled into media. And meantime, those who don't take government money are often

00:12:44.720 ostracized, kept out of the loop. Information is not shared with them. They don't have access to

00:12:50.980 politicians i i can't help but think that this is the real propaganda strategy of the government

00:12:57.020 now you pay off the media you reward the good media with money as long as they play ball and

00:13:04.660 you alienate others who refuse to take your money and become part of the propaganda machinery if

00:13:11.700 you will what do you think yeah i mean i think that that's that's all part of of you know how

00:13:18.200 we're seeing, uh, uh, the country move, uh, in terms of, of, of some of these

00:13:25.340 measures, and I mean, you know, the government talking about digital ID, uh,

00:13:30.300 you, you saw it introduced in Britain and it, and it was introduced because it

00:13:35.080 was a measure to, um, to monitor immigration, or at least that's what the

00:13:39.600 government claimed, but it quickly became, uh, an issue, uh, for the

00:13:44.280 Starmer government and one that I don't think that they moved forward at the

00:13:47.520 end of the day. And you're seeing, you know, different controls of the media and censorship

00:13:52.920 in the United Kingdom. And I think you're seeing those measures reintroduced here in different

00:14:00.060 government bills and different activities by the government. You know, governments don't like to

00:14:05.580 be criticized, even in democracy. And so, you know, governments take measures that they see

00:14:14.460 abroad or elsewhere and adopt them and try and integrate them into policy here. And I think

00:14:21.660 there are challenges with that, particularly around a free and open media and accountable media.

00:14:29.940 Yeah. I mean, when it comes to government, their priority is power, holding onto power at all

00:14:37.060 costs. And so if they see their critics as a threat, especially when you can get on social

00:14:43.540 media platforms and get millions of views, you know, you can very much become a threat to them

00:14:49.300 and they're not going to take it kindly. So they're going to use the infrastructure of the

00:14:53.700 state, including laws like, you know, the online harms bill or any of these other quasi-censorship

00:15:02.540 related bills to silence people who are essentially a threat to their continued hold on power.

00:15:10.920 And that's what it really boils down to for these people. They're a lot less interested in, quote unquote, democracy than they are in having their hands on the levers of power and holding it on, holding onto it at all costs.

00:15:27.320 And I think ultimately that's where all of these measures come in, don't they?

00:15:33.020 And I guess when you throw in technology, digital technology, like the kind that they now have available to them, you would have to be extremely good not to use these things in order to punish, surveil, or target otherwise your enemies, your political enemies.

00:15:53.720 I mean, that to me is what we're heading towards.

00:15:58.240 And I guess the fear is that ultimately you're going to get a one-party state because that 0.98

00:16:04.020 one party is going to be the one that is there to employ all of these tools, like the Chinese 0.50

00:16:10.300 Communist Party has, to hold on to power for decades upon decades.

00:16:15.360 And nobody is able to stop them because you have no ability to even criticize them without

00:16:22.260 facing retribution from the state you know well you know we're not there in canada yet but but

00:16:30.660 that danger is down the road and when you you know couple digital technology uh with ai and you get

00:16:37.780 into predictive policing and predictive um intelligence and things like that you you get

00:16:46.820 into a space where mistakes are made ai is not perfect uh and and but it does you know scoop up

00:16:56.180 a lot of information and and set out uh that information in an easily used manner and and

00:17:05.620 that could be used to compromise people's privacy and their rights and so i mean in democracy as i

00:17:12.660 said earlier the rules matter and i think that you know one of the things that we have to be very

00:17:19.540 vigilant on is what those rules are in society and what the oversight and accountability

00:17:25.220 mechanisms are and are they effective and and those those laws that legislation around those

00:17:32.820 areas needs to be refreshed on a regular basis to keep pace with the technology yeah i mean if this

00:17:40.340 particular government had not gotten its majority the way it did or anyway then some of these bills

00:17:47.980 would never have passed and uh i can't help but wonder if you know passing those bills was a real

00:17:54.340 priority for these people bills that many people considered draconian and uh anti-freedom um any

00:18:02.720 advice for people who are concerned about this uh how how do you think that society in general

00:18:10.200 that still values the freedoms that we've enjoyed forever in this country.

00:18:14.640 How should we behave?

00:18:16.480 How should we handle this?

00:18:19.020 I guess what it comes down to in my mind is that Canadians have a very strange perception of threats.

00:18:26.220 And Canadians need to be more vigilant and more concerned about the threats that they face at home and abroad.

00:18:33.900 And this is one of those areas where digitalization, AI, and government surveillance routines present real concern to Canadians or should present a real concern to Canadians.

00:18:50.740 And it needs to be followed very closely.

00:18:53.820 my concern is you know we're a country that that looks at the united states as a bigger threat than 0.55

00:19:01.000 china and looks at the united states as a bigger threat than russia and i find that a warped uh

00:19:08.440 view of of threat and and a warped perception of the security situation around us and you know

00:19:16.980 canadians need to you know verify what they're seeing and what they're hearing and look at it

00:19:22.620 closely i mean especially after the election interference that we've seen repeated interference 0.98

00:19:29.100 in our elections year after year after year it's it's the chinese that are doing it i mean yeah 0.64

00:19:34.380 there are other other countries involved but it's the chinese that are the main bad actors in this 0.95

00:19:39.500 case and and somehow all of this seems to be glossed over in favor of hating the americans

00:19:45.260 anyway thank you so much for coming on the show joe we really appreciate it welcome thank you

00:19:49.500 If you enjoyed the show and appreciate independent journalism, please consider becoming a premier

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00:20:03.420 Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:20:04.600 We'll see you next time.

Juno News - August 22, 2026

Secret military report WARNS against digital IDs and currencies

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