No evidence of 'traitors' in Parliament conspiring with foreign states: public inquiry
Final report found government’s response to threat lacking
The public inquiry studying foreign election meddling said while it's noticed some concerning behaviour, it found no evidence that "traitors" in Parliament are plotting with hostile states against Canada's interests.
In her final report, released on 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 seats to foreign entities and she is "not aware of any federal legislation, regulations or policies that have been enacted or repealed on account of foreign interference."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 last 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.
In one case, NSICOP members said they saw intelligence suggesting MPs worked to influence their colleagues on India's behalf and proactively provided confidential information to Indian officials. The committee also reported that China believes it has a quid pro quo relationship with some MPs who will engage with the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for Beijing mobilizing its vast networks in their favour.
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.
She did note that there are legitimate concerns about some parliamentarians potentially having problematic relationships with foreign officials, exercising poor judgment, behaving naively and perhaps displaying questionable ethics.
"But I did not see evidence of parliamentarians conspiring with foreign states against Canada," the report concludes.
"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.
It calls disinformation "noxious" and "powerful," and says it is used as a retaliatory tactic.
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 wrote.
"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'
While her report offers some comfort around the effectiveness of preventing foreign interference so far, she called the federal government's response to the threat "far from perfect."
Hogue said there is no evidence anyone acted in bad faith, but said she came across systemic shortcomings.
"I have observed that the government has sometimes taken too long to act, and that co-ordination between the various players involved has not always been optimal," she wrote in her report.
She also called the Liberal government a "poor communicator and insufficiently transparent" when it comes to foreign interference.
"Most Canadians first learned about foreign interference through media reports, and without the government being the source of the information communicated. This should not have been the case," Hogue said in a public address, after the report's release.
"If the public is to play its part in countering the threat of foreign interference, it must better understand what it is."
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.
In a statement, the Conservative Party said Hogue's report "leaves Canadians with concerns that the government failed to inform" them.
"While all this information is concerning and leaves many questions about the government's failures, it is relieving to see the commissioner's conclusion that there 'is no evidence of 'traitors' in Parliament," the Opposition party said.
The commission's long-anticipated seven-volume final report follows more than a year 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."
Like her initial report, Tuesday's report named China and India as the two most active perpetrators of foreign electoral interference in Canada.
Report makes 51 recommendations as election looms
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. It also suggests all political party leaders "be encouraged" to obtain top-secret security clearance and calls on the government to set up a new agency to better monitor misinformation and disinformation.
Hogue said she feels some "can and should" be implemented as soon as possible, "perhaps even before the next election."
The inquiry's final report comes just weeks before a general election could be triggered. The main opposition parties have been clear they intent to topple the Liberal government as soon as they can after Parliament reconvenes on March 24.
In a statement, the federal government said it will "carefully review" Hogue's findings and recommendations.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh told reporters Tuesday he's instructed his party to implement the recommendations and hopes other parties do the same.
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