The public inquiry studying foreign election meddling has found no evidence that “traitors” in Parliament are plotting with hostile states against Canada’s interest.
In her final report, released Tuesday, Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue wrote that although she has seen a few cases where a foreign state has attempted to curry favour with parliamentarians, “the phenomenon remains marginal and largely ineffective.”
“While the states’ attempts are troubling and there is some concerning conduct by parliamentarians, there is no cause for widespread alarm,” she wrote.
She added that there is no evidence to suggest that parliamentarians owe their successful elections to foreign entities and she is “not aware of any federal legislation, regulations or policies that have been enacted or repealed on account of foreign interference.”
Her findings cap off months of concern and heated debate in Ottawa following a bombshell report from one of Canada’s intelligence watchdogs this spring.
In June, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), made up of MPs and Senators with top-secret security clearance, said some parliamentarians are “semi-witting or witting” participants of efforts by foreign states to interfere in Canadian politics. Many MPs called on the government to release names of the parliamentarians accused of acting on behalf of a foreign power.
Hogue and her team of lawyers were asked to review the NSICOP report’s findings, some of which she disputed. She said some of the report’s findings were “more definitive than the underlying intelligence could support” and “sometimes contained inaccuracies.”
“The consternation caused by the NSICOP report, while understandable, is in some important respects unwarranted,” Hogue wrote Tuesday. “While some conduct may be concerning, I did not see evidence of ‘traitors’ in Parliament.”
Disinformation an ‘existential threat’
The inquiry’s report said while allegations of interference involving elected officials nabbed the most headlines and motivated debate in the House of Commons, misinformation and disinformation “pose an even greater threat to democracy.”
Actors spread disinformation about candidates and elected officials who express views that diverge from their own interests to try and prevent these candidates from getting elected, and to affect policy choices and positions, the report found.
Disinformation, which the report calls “noxious” and “powerful” is also used as a retaliatory tactic, said the report.
Hogue said this may have been the case when a disinformation campaign followed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he announced Canada had evidence linking India to the death of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, though the report notes “no definitive link to a foreign state could be proven.”
“If we do not find ways of addressing it, misinformation and disinformation have the ability to distort our discourse, change our views, and shape our society,” Hogue said.
“In my view it is no exaggeration to say that at this juncture, information manipulation (whether foreign or not) poses the single biggest risk to our democracy. It is an existential threat.”
Government’s response ‘far from perfect’
Despite her overarching findings, Hogue found the federal government’s response to threat of foreign interference “far from perfect.”
“I have observed that the government has sometimes taken too long to act, and that coordination between the various players involved has not always been optimal,” she wrote in her report.
She called the Liberal government a “poor communicator and insufficiently transparent” when it comes to foreign interference.
“If the public is to play its part in countering the threat of foreign interference, it must better understand what it is,” she wrote.
While Hogue said the government has in the past two years begun to prioritize the fight against foreign interference, including better alerting the public, she said those efforts “have been piecemeal and underwhelming” so far.
The commission’s long-anticipated seven-volume final report follows 16 months of investigation, including testimony from more than 100 witnesses and thousands of pages of evidence.
The federal inquiry was triggered by media reports in the past two years which, citing unnamed security sources and classified documents, accused China of interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
Hogue released an initial report in May, that found foreign meddling didn’t affect which political party formed government in those elections. The report found it’s possible the results in a small number of ridings were affected by foreign interference, “but this cannot be said with certainty.
The second phase, which saw public hearings in September and October, focused on whether Canadian government institutions are equipped to detect and counter foreign interference.
“The extent to which foreign interference has succeeded in permeating our democratic processes and institutions should not be overblown,” Hogue wrote in Tuesday’s final report.
The final report makes 51 recommendations, including improving how intelligence is shared and updating the Canada Elections Act.
Hogue said she feels some “can and should” be implemented as soon as possible, “perhaps even before the next election.”