The long-awaited first report from Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue on foreign interference did not contradict the broad outlines of the previous observation made by special rapporteur David Johnston. The overall results of the last two federal elections were not influenced, she in turn confirms. But beyond this elementary conclusion, which no one doubted, Judge Hogue notes important shortcomings, which she for her part does not forgive so easily to the government.
Not sharing the former governor general’s credulity regarding the original casualness of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, Commissioner Hogue on the contrary supports the urgency of action. And at the same time raises the eternal question: why did the government take more than a year to launch this public inquiry? And how is it that the liberal reaction, after more than two years of disturbing revelations, remains partly fragmentary?
Although she judges that the integrity of the 2019 and 2021 elections was not altered and that the Liberal Party would have won them, interference or not, Commissioner Hogue considers on the other hand that it is “possible” that the Results from a “small number of constituencies” were affected. The judge does not note, like David Johnston, “no bad faith” regarding the sharing of information reporting attempts at interference in Canada, but she deplores an insufficient response to counter it and calls on the government to ensure this.
Indeed, the fact that a single voter could have seen their vote influenced or discouraged “undermines democratic processes”. And above all, public confidence in democracy, observes Commissioner Hogue. “This is perhaps the greatest harm that Canada has suffered from foreign interference,” she writes, echoing the concerns repeatedly raised on this page.
The Trudeau government is finally responding, with an imposing bill. The Minister of Public Safety, Dominic LeBlanc, casts a wide net: new foreign interference offenses will be added to the Criminal Code; the powers of collection and sharing of secret information by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service will be expanded, in particular to allow its communication with entities outside the government, and a public registry of individuals attempting to influence the political or governmental process Canadian on behalf of foreign entities will finally be set up, headed by an independent commissioner.
Important measures which seem, at first glance, to respond to the numerous calls from national security experts. The parliamentary study will, however, be decisive in ensuring that there will be no disguised excesses.
This legislative response to the revelations of foreign interference of the last two years, which had been expected for several months, will not earn the government congratulations for having acted promptly. That the date of its submission coincided, within three days, with that of Commissioner Hogue’s first report was certainly not coincidental. That it also coincides with the filing of charges against three Indian nationals suspected of having murdered Indo-Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia is just a happy coincidence for the Liberals.
The scope of Minister LeBlanc’s reform also omits the all-too-vulnerable electoral period.
Commissioner Hogue is concerned, for example, about too timid responses to disinformation campaigns, because simply waiting, as a general rule, for these falsehoods to be corrected in the public square allows them to be spread first. The judge is also concerned about investiture assemblies, particularly those of the Liberal Party, which are open to all those who wish to speak out, making them real “gateways for foreign states”.
The register of foreign influence will certainly target actors wishing to intervene during such pre-electoral appointments. But for the rest, by preferring to rely on the internal management of political parties left free to regulate these nominations as they see fit, Minister LeBlanc perpetuates this problematic compartmentalization of the response to foreign interference during electoral periods and washes his hands recklessly.
Commissioner Hogue’s final report, which he is awaiting the tabling of in order to make a decision later, will not come until the end of the year, that is to say at most a few months before the next electoral campaign for which these investiture assemblies are already started these days. By then it will be too late, in many cases. Especially since the adoption of his bill may take months.
Minister LeBlanc and the Trudeau government have taken an important, albeit late, first step with their legislative reform. The response to foreign interference must not stop there.