Canada Withdraws Sponsorship From Vilnius Conference Over U.S. Panels
Canada has pulled its sponsorship from the EU DisinfoLab 2026 counter-disinformation conference in Vilnius over panels that name the United States as a source of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI).
Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Samantha Lafleur said Canada was not comfortable with the framing of some panels, according to reporting published Oct. 7. Canadian officials will still attend but will not chair discussions. Ottawa did not walk out. It stayed in the room. The Globe and Mail
The event is the annual counter-disinformation conference organised by EU DisinfoLab, a Brussels-based non-profit. It is scheduled for Oct. 6-8, 2026, in Vilnius, Lithuania, according to the organiser. EU DisinfoLab FIMI is the term governments and researchers use for coordinated disinformation and interference run by foreign states.
More than one panel lists the United States as a FIMI source. A Thursday session on Arctic disinformation points to growing evidence the United States has, in specific Arctic cases, acted as a FIMI actor. Saliou Babou, director of Global Affairs Canada's Rapid Response Mechanism unit that tracks foreign state-sponsored disinformation, was scheduled to chair that Arctic session before Ottawa withdrew its sponsorship and its chairs.
Participants told The Globe and Mail that Lithuania's government and the European External Action Service, the EU's foreign service, also withdrew sponsorship. Posters inside the venue now have white stickers covering the logos for Canada, Lithuania and the EU, according to participant Benjamin Shultz of the American Sunlight Project. A separate account said the Brussels withdrawal followed pressure from the United States. Intelligence Online
The broader context here is the line Ottawa is drawing between sponsorship and participation. Sponsorship is like co-signing the agenda. It suggests endorsement of the program and its categories. Participation keeps access to practitioners, researchers and allied officials who work on FIMI files. By pulling funds and chairs but keeping delegates in sessions, Global Affairs avoids putting Canada's name to a judgment about Washington while still hearing how European partners assess U.S. conduct.
Looking at what matters for people working this file, the Arctic panel counts more than the dispute over logos. The Rapid Response Mechanism is Canada's operational hub for tracking state-sponsored disinformation, and naming its director as chair showed Ottawa treated the Arctic information environment as a place where FIMI occurs. Removing the chair does not remove that policy question. It leaves Canadian officials watching a discussion, led by others, about whether activity by an ally in the North should be assessed under the same FIMI standard normally used for Russia, China and Iran.
