Commission on Foreign Interference | Documents distributed in English only

(Ottawa) The Commission on Foreign Interference contravenes the Official Languages ​​Act by failing to publish several documents in French, says conservative senator Claude Carignan.

Mr. Carignan formally filed a complaint on this subject with the Commissioner of Official Languages ​​Raymond Théberge in a seven-page letter in which he lists the list of documents which were revealed by the Commission chaired by Judge Marie-Josée Hogue and which have not been translated into French.

Last year, Mr. Carignan filed a similar complaint about the Commission on the state of emergency chaired by Judge Paul Rouleau, which looked into the Trudeau government’s decision to invoke the Emergency Measures Act in the winter of 2022 to end the occupation of downtown Ottawa by the organizers of the “freedom convoy”.

In a recent preliminary report, Commissioner Raymond Théberge agreed with the Conservative senator that the Rouleau commission had indeed failed to fulfill its obligations arising from the Official Languages ​​Act. He notably stressed that this commission is a “federal institution” on the grounds that it was created by a decree of the federal government and must therefore distribute its documents in both languages.

In his extensive letter, Mr. Carignan also takes up some of Commissioner Théberge’s conclusions regarding the failings of the Rouleau commission to invite him to conduct another investigation into violations of the law. Official Languages ​​Act committed by the Commission on Foreign Interference.

“In your report, you confirmed that the State of Emergency Commission published documents on its website in only one official language of Canada, including federal government documents. Indeed, to this day, many documents are available only in English without French translation on its site,” writes Mr. Carignan in his letter.

“Faced with this observation, your report concluded that your “investigation established that the commission had not respected its obligations provided for in articles 22 and 27 of the Law” and that, therefore, this reason for my complaint was well founded. However, I believe that the Commission on Foreign Interference committed exactly the same failure as the Commission on the State of Emergency,” he adds.

The conservative senator finds it incomprehensible that certain documents published by the Commission on Foreign Interference are only in English on his site while their French version is available on other federal government sites.

This is notably the case of a document bearing the title “Foreign Interference and You”, distributed in English by the Commission. However, this same document written by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is available in both official languages ​​on this agency’s website.

Inform the electorate

According to Mr. Carignan, such a situation violates the rights of Francophones in the country.

“The fact that the Commission on Foreign Interference has not made documents available on its website in both official languages ​​does not allow me, as well as all other Canadians, to study the work of the commission in the language of my choice,” says Mr. Carignan.

“Since many documents are not available in French, French-speaking Canadians who are not proficient in English are deprived of the opportunity to understand these documents to learn about how foreign actors may have interfered in the electoral process canadian. These are very important questions for Canadians who participate in the democratic process, when they vote in federal elections and choose the candidates who will represent them as Members of Parliament,” he continues.

The senator also deplores that the Privy Council Office seems to have ignored the warnings of the Commissioner of Official Languages ​​in February 2023 made after receiving complaints concerning the absence of documents in French. However, ministers of the Trudeau government and the Privy Council Office were committed to correcting the situation.

“Obviously, the government’s promises – namely that the documents produced on the website of a federal commission of inquiry must be accessible in both official languages ​​– have not translated into action in the case of the Commission on the foreign interference. This is why I am filing a complaint against it and the Privy Council Office. »

Under the news Official Languages ​​Actthe Commissioner of Official Languages ​​was given new binding powers, including the possibility of enforceable orders to enforce his decisions.