For you, Canadian everyman, our nation’s scandals aren’t experienced all that differently: news of deep corruption or incompetence catches wind, people get mad, bureaucratic bodies diffuse blame — and ultimately, no one pays the price. Well, except for you, who has to learn to do better.
On Tuesday, this seemed to be the formula used by foreign interference commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue, who released a report containing the findings of her two-year investigation into possible Chinese (and more!) meddling in the 2019 and 2021 elections. Which, of course, cast no shadows on any public officials of any sort while using the occasion to suggest a crackdown on Canadian free expression.
For months, various juicy allegations of wrongdoing have oozed out of the intelligence space. One by one, Hogue’s report snuffed them out.
In June 2024, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) — which is not a formal House of Commons committee in the legislative branch of government, but a group within the executive branch of government under the authority of Trudeau — released its redacted findings that some parliamentarians had “wittingly” or “semi-wittingly” assisted foreign governments while in office. After reading an unredacted version, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh told reporters that some MPs were “named in this report” and that they were “traitors to Canada.”
Hogue, on the other hand, said there was no such thing. She reviewed an unredacted version of the NSICOP report and came away with a very different read: “The classified NSICOP Report does not name individual parliamentarians” and “I did not see evidence of ‘traitors.’” Though, she added that “the NSICOP Report nevertheless makes strongly worded and unequivocally stated allegations against individual parliamentarians.”
What Hogue seemed more concerned about was the “public consternation” caused by the NSICOP report — the fracturing of trust in institutions, and the increased suspicion of some parliamentarians (“especially those from diverse backgrounds”) — which she considered unwarranted. Some intelligence supporting the report was inaccurate, and the situation was not as “extreme” as the report made it out to be.
Never mind the parliamentarians with links to unfriendly regimes, I guess.
Speaking of unfriendly regimes, Hogue had thoughts on that, too. She outlined the influence of outside nations on diaspora populations within Canada: Iran monitors the online activity of its people here and intimidates them; China does the same, along with “forced repatriations and physical violence,” and uses students and community groups to enforce its will; India, though less sophisticated, resorts to “increasingly aggressive and violent activities” to manage the Khalistani activists on our soil.
As for direct political interference, obviously, that’s a problem too: China has taken over Chinese-language media in Canada, allowing it to circulate falsities. It also “targets all levels of government in Canada,” as does India. Intelligence indicates the latter, concerningly, “may have provided, and may continue to be clandestinely providing, illicit financial support to various Canadian politicians in an attempt to secure the election of pro-Indian candidates or gain influence over candidates who take office” and that the Indian government attempted to influence “nomination processes and decisions made in Parliament.”
But if you’re wondering what level of complicity Canadian officials have in this, Hogue leaves that out. “The intelligence does not necessarily indicate that the elected officials or candidates involved were aware of the interference attempts, nor were the attempts necessarily successful.” Oh, well. Some inquiry that was.
And that’s how the foreign interference inquiry went. No blame was really assigned anywhere. Yes, there appears to be some meddling, and yes, Chinese international students appear to have been bussed in to sway a Liberal nomination race, but no one seems to be responsible for noticing any of it. Except, of course, a nebulous intelligence bureaucracy that seems to suffer constant communication breakdowns with the cabinet in charge of governing. Though no one is at fault there either, you see. These problems are systemic.
Hogue, in the end, made 51 recommendations for change. You can imagine the themes they covered: information-sharing within government should be improved, public communication should be improved, various intelligence bodies should be beefed up, law enforcement should investigate more, fines should be increased, etc.
Within these were buried a few recommendations of great concern: Recommendation 11 proposed a “government entity to monitor the domestic open-source online information environment for misinformation and disinformation that could impact Canadian democratic processes,” possibly with “authority to interact with social media platforms.” That is, proactive monitoring of the internet. Recommendation 32 suggested a public funding system for political parties, as the current donation system, brought in by the Harper government I note, makes (unpopular, desperate) parties vulnerable to foreign sway.
And, at the very end, Recommendations 44 to 51 all had to do with the government prying into media matters. Government should be looking into funding models for media and creating social media education programs, government should be looking into “a reliable artificial intelligence translation tool that could broaden access to French language or English language professional media for individuals who currently face language barriers” — as if Google Translate doesn’t already exist. Hogue even recommended more government funding for immigrants to learn English and French (of course, no discussion of raising language requirements in immigration).
Her other ideas: mandatory citations in political ads, mandatory labels for “altered content” in the news and even a prohibition on undermining the legitimacy of election results. The last is particularly mind-boggling, seeing how her inquiry has failed to assign blame. Without accountability for interference, how can anyone be barred from criticizing the system’s integrity?
Overall, the report amounts to another Laurentian elite lecturing the rest of Canada about how a major system failure in government — caused by people who supervise and serve it — amounts to another precious Learning Moment For All of Us Canadians. Just like the blackface incident, just like the Kokanee groping allegation. Instead of, you know, an occasion for a few major high-profile firings, fines and perhaps criminal investigations.
As always, Canadian everyman, you didn’t do anything wrong. But, because of a few foreign interferers and a slew of government policies have weakened the dominance of English and French (and, in turn, electoral integrity), this judge figures you’d better submit to mass online surveillance while paying more taxes to support government misinformation-correcting initiatives. Individual accountability is next to impossible in this country, so that, I suppose, is the next best thing.
National Post