Foreign interference a ‘stain’ on Canada’s electoral process, Hogue inquiry concludes

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Foreign interference in 2019 and 2021 undermined the right of Canadian voters to have an electoral process “free from coercion or covert influence” and may have affected results in a small number of ridings, a public inquiry has concluded in the first of two reports.

While foreign meddling did not alter the overall outcome of the two elections, Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue, a justice of the Quebec Court of Appeal, issued a call to action Friday for the government to vigorously enact measures to tackle this “malign” threat to Canadian democracy.

She identified China as the “most persistent and sophisticated foreign interference threat to Canada” at the moment.

The acts of foreign interference that occurred, or are suspected to have occurred, “are a stain on our electoral process and impacted the process leading up to the actual vote,” she wrote.

A guide to foreign interference and China’s suspected influence in Canada

Justice Hogue warned in her 193-page report that foreign interference undermines trust in the electoral system and discourages diaspora communities from participating in Canadian democracy.

“The government must re-establish this trust by informing the public of the threat of foreign interference, and by taking real concrete steps to detect, deter and counter it,” she wrote.

She agreed with the views of all the participants at the inquiry, including the Conservative Party, that foreign interference did not sway the outcome of the last two elections in which the Liberals won the most seats. “The fact that there is agreement from the members of the Conservatives that this did not occur reflects the seriousness with which Parliamentarians in these proceedings have approached the commission’s work.”

The inquiry went further than a May, 2023, report by former governor-general David Johnston, who discounted assertions from the Conservative Party that Chinese state interference affected the vote in certain ridings in 2021. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bowed to pressure to set up an independent commission of inquiry in September after Mr. Johnston lost the confidence of all the opposition parties in the House and resigned as special rapporteur.

In her report, Justice Hogue said the eight-month inquiry, much of which was held in-camera, found “ample evidence that some foreign states engaged in foreign interference in the past two Canadian elections.”

“It is possible that results in a small number of ridings were affected, but this cannot be said with certainty,” the report said.

Justice Hogue singled out the Vancouver-area riding of Steveston-Richmond East where Conservative MP Kenny Chiu lost the 2021 election as one example where concerns remain about the possible impact of interference by the People’s Republic of China.

The disinformation painted Mr. Chiu, a strong critic of Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong, as being “anti-China” and attempted “to dissuade Chinese Canadians from voting for him,” the report said.

“There are strong indications of PRC involvement and there is a reasonable possibility that these narratives could have impacted the result,” Justice Hogue said. “Therefore, there is a reasonable possibility that false narratives could have impacted the results of this riding, but I cannot go further.”

Justice Hogue did not pass judgment on how Mr. Trudeau, top aides and senior ministers responded to Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warnings about Chinese state interference.

“The evidence I have heard to date does not demonstrate bad faith on anyone’s part, or that information was deliberately and improperly withheld,” she said, adding: “it does suggest that on some occasions, information related to foreign interference did not reach its intended recipient, while on others the information was not properly understood by those who received it.”

But she was critical of the assessment by a panel of five senior civil servants in charge of safeguarding the election that false disinformation in 2021 aimed at Mr. Chiu and then-Conservative leader Erin O’Toole faded away within days.

“The fact that the narratives targeting Mr. Chiu and Mr. O’Toole had died down by election day does not mean they had no effect,” Justice Hogue said. “By the time that disinformation fades away, it may be too late.”

Justice Hogue identified China as the foremost aggressor when it comes to foreign interference in Canada. She also cited India, saying intelligence reveals a “Government of India proxy agent” attempted to clandestinely funnel money to candidates in 2021. The inquiry found no evidence of Russian involvement in either of the last two elections.

“Based on the intelligence collected by Canada’s intelligence agencies, the People’s Republic of China (‘PRC’) stands out as a main perpetrator of foreign interference against Canada,” it said.

“Globally, China is recognized as using foreign interference as a common tool to advance its own interests and has been assessed by Canadian authorities as the most active foreign state actor engaged in interference directed at government officials, political organizations, candidates for political office, and diaspora communities.”

The commission flagged the 2019 Liberal nomination race in the riding of Don Valley North as a second example of where concerns remain about the possible impact of meddling by the People’s Republic of China.

“Available intelligence respecting the 2019 Liberal nomination contest [in Don Valley North] reflects a well-grounded suspicion that the busing of international students was tied to the PRC. Given that DVN was considered a ‘safe’ Liberal seat, this would likely not have impacted which party won the seat. It could, however, have impacted who was elected to Parliament. This is significant.”

Justice Hogue noted that the nomination was hotly contested and Mr. Dong won by a “very close margin. She wrote: “This incident makes clear the extent to which nomination contests can be gateways for foreign states who wish to interfere in our democratic processes.”

When informed of the irregularities discovered by CSIS, Mr. Trudeau said there was insufficient evidence to remove Mr. Dong but promised to revisit the matter after the election. Justice Hogue said she hadn’t seen any evidence such a follow-up happened.

She also questioned the Liberal Party’s rules that allow students and non-Canadians to vote in nomination races. “The eligibility criteria for voting in nomination contests do not seem very stringent, and the control measures in place do not seem very robust.”

The inquiry said foreign meddling undermined the confidence of Canadians in their electoral system.

“Undermining faith in democracy and government is a primary aim of many of the states that engage in foreign interference,” she said. “They succeeded in part in 2019 and 2021 because some Canadians have now reduced trust in Canada’s democratic process. This is perhaps the greatest harm Canada has suffered as a result of foreign interference.”

Justice Hogue laid out how China and other hostile states interfered in Canadian elections, citing illegal campaign donations, bribery, blackmail, threats and cyberattacks and particularly disinformation campaigns.

She noted Canada’s top spy agency warned in a February, 2023, briefing prepared for the Prime Minister’s Office that Chinese state meddling in the 2021 election was prompted by antipathy toward the Conservative Party’s platform.

“CSIS opined that PRC foreign interference activities in 2021 were ‘almost certainly’ motivated by a perception that the Conservative Party of Canada was promoting an anti-PRC platform,” Justice Hogue wrote.

As the spy agency noted, the nature of the interference suggested the Chinese state’s hand was at play. “The timing of these efforts to align with Conservative polling improvements; the similarities in language with articles published by PRC state media; and the partnership agreements between these Canada based outlets and PRC entities; all suggest that these efforts were orchestrated or directed by the PRC.”

Justice Hogue is now moving on to conduct a second phase of hearings on foreign interference, including meddling outside of election periods, which will also come up with measures Canada should take to counter this activity. The next set of hearings will take place in the fall and her final report is due in late December.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters Friday that the government won’t wait for the final report to act. The government has a package of legislative reforms ready to be tabled to deal with foreign interference. It includes a foreign-agent registry and changes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, the Security of Information Act and the Criminal Code to make foreign interference an offence.

The government served notice Friday to the Commons that it will soon introduce legislation titled “An Act respecting countering foreign interference.”

The Official Opposition welcomed the Hogue inquiry’s first report, noting it confirmed that foreign interference occurred, and it affected the “right of Canadians to have their electoral processes and democratic institutions free from covert influence.”

Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said the report’s conclusions and findings “are starkly different from what the Trudeau government has told us over the last 18 months” and “different from the report of Mr. Johnston of a year ago.”

Justice Hogue, he said, “concluded that interference occurred in the last two general elections. And while this interference did not have an impact on which party came to power, it could have had an impact on the results at the riding level. And she concluded that it impacted the broader electoral system, that it undermined public confidence in Canadian democracy, and that it disproportionately targeted and negatively affected diasporic communities, particularly the Chinese community.”

Mr. Chong noted that as recently as April, Mr. Trudeau insisted all riding results in each of 338 electoral districts were unimpaired by foreign interference in the last two elections.

NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who CSIS said has been targeted by Beijing, said Ottawa must do more to protect Chinese-Canadians from intimidation and disinformation practices during election campaigns.

Ms. Kwan said she hopes Justice Hogue will recommend that election monitoring be removed from the hands of senior civil servants who answer to the prime minister.

“The report noted there is an systemic failure of communications by the government to those who are targeted or impacted by foreign-interference actors,” she said. “I strongly believe what we need is one independent agency to be mandated as the lead to take on this work.”

She also said Justice Hogue needs to hold Mr. Trudeau and his top aides to account in the final report on how his government handled CSIS intelligence that warned about China state interference and disinformation efforts.