It's a shame we didn't have Trudeau's testimony on foreign interference earlier. Much earlier

A half-hour into his appear‐ ance before the public in‐ quiry into foreign interfer‐ ence, Justin Trudeau ar‐ rived at a dramatic mo‐ ment, from 2019, that would reverberate three and a half years later when Canadian journalists began reporting on a series of in‐ telligence leaks.

In the midst of the 2019 election, security officials briefed a Liberal party official about "concerns" related to the Liberal nomination con‐ test in the Toronto riding of Don Valley North. Those con‐ cerns were passed on to Jere‐ my Broadhurst, the party's campaign director, who then ventured to the government terminal at the Ottawa air‐ port on a Sunday in late Sep‐ tember to meet with Trudeau, who was returning after a week of campaign travel, Trudeau recounted on Wednesday.

The prime minister and Broadhurst spoke there for 20 or 30 minutes. Broadhurst explained that intelligence of‐ ficials had concerns that Chi‐ nese officials had potentially been planning to interfere in the nomination contest, specifically by transporting either students or ChineseCanadians via bus to the polling station to vote for Han Dong, who had won the nomination. He later became the Liberal MP for Don Valley North.

In Trudeau's telling on Wednesday, it wasn't clear whether this plan had actual‐ ly been carried out. The Lib‐ eral party's internal process had raised no red flags about the vote. And the mere pres‐ ence of buses at a nomina‐ tion contest was not, in Trudeau's view, evidence of something questionable (ap‐ parently it's rather common).

Though it was reported in February 2023 that CSIS offi‐ cials "urged" the Liberals to revoke Dong's nomination, both Trudeau and Broad‐ hurst have now told the com‐ mission - under oath - that no recommendation of any kind was made. Trudeau also testified that what he and Broadhurst heard was to re‐ main secret.

So what to do?

Trudeau and Broadhurst both concluded there were not sufficient grounds to overturn Dong's nomination.

"Overturning a democra‐ tic event, like an official party nomination … must have a fairly high threshold," Trudeau told the inquiry. "In this case, I didn't feel that there was sufficient, or suffi‐ ciently credible, information that would justify this very significant step."

No doubt there will be those who second-guess Trudeau's decision - or who believe something more should have been done to get to the bottom of what may or may not have hap‐ pened in Don Valley North.

But that half-hour at the Ottawa airport seems to crys‐ tallize something important about both the problem of foreign interference and the political drama that has played out since. And it is perhaps a shame that Trudeau's testimony only came on Wednesday.

Incomplete and closely held

The biggest problem at hand remains the undis‐ puted (and now widely known) fact that hostile for‐ eign states are trying to covertly meddle in Canada's democratic process. It might be debated exactly how much of a problem it is, but the threat - both real and perceived - is now apparent.

But it is incomplete and closely guarded information that is central to many of the issues, disputes and head‐ lines that have recently de‐ fined the debate around for‐ eign interference.

It has been said repeat‐ edly that what is commonly referred to as "intelligence" is not "evidence." But it might be more accurate to say that intelligence is not always proven fact.

In the case of Don Valley North, that seemingly put Trudeau in the position of having to decide whether to dismiss a candidate on the basis of uncorroborated sus‐ picion. Perhaps he should have. But it might at least be agreed that the decision isn't a slam dunk.

In February 2023, ques‐ tions about Dong and his nomination exploded into public view via leaks from un‐ named security officials. But it would be another 14 mon‐ ths before Trudeau and Broadhurst explained what they knew.

In the 2021 election, the Conservatives were con‐ cerned that misinformation was circulating on social media about the party and its positions regarding China. Erin O'Toole, leader of the Conservatives at the time, has said the public servants charged with monitoring for‐ eign interference should have issued a public warning about the misinformation. But those officials told the in‐ quiry they did not have enough information to con‐ clude that the messages on social media were being coordinated or driven by a for‐ eign state.

At the very least, this spring's hearings have belat‐ edly brought some clarity to those considerations - and further illuminated how diffi‐ cult it can be to navigate a world where so much is un‐ proven.

These hearings would cer‐ tainly not be happening if not for the media leaks of 2022 and 2023 that promoted a number of significant claims.

Some of those claims have now been directly disputed or qualified.

WATCH | Elections were not compromised, PM says:

But the government has repeatedly insisted that na‐ tional security kept it from re‐ sponding more fully to the leaks and much was left un‐ addressed for months. An adviser to the prime minister testified this week that, in re‐ sponse to one media report, he asked whether some of the information in the gov‐ ernment's position could be declassified and released. Apparently he was told that wasn't possible.

Beyond what the public gets to know, there remain questions about how well in‐ formation flows within gov‐ ernment and between secu‐ rity officials and political par‐ ties. At least some of the more sensational claims re‐ ported in the media seem not to have reached the prime minister until after the leaks.

Some of the confusion and intrigue of the past year and a half could be put down to the relative novelty of the problem - what we now know as "foreign interference." For however long nations have been trying to meddle in each other's elections, it was‐ n't until the United States presidential election in 2016 that democratic nations were fully confronted to the extent of the threat posed by nondemocratic regimes.

Trudeau was at pains on Wednesday to review every‐ thing his government had done to prepare for that problem and how it set up in‐ dependent bodies that could deal with interference during elections and established protocols and processes. This inquiry may be demonstrat‐ ing that even with all that process there will still be dif‐ ficult calls to be made - and parties who second-guess those calls.

But if the past year and a half was a stress test for the Canadian political system, it can't be said that it passed with flying colours.

Indeed, the most impor‐ tant conclusion might be that doubt and suspicion about the democratic process thrive in the absence of clar‐ ity and information. And while the government might not want to call a public in‐ quiry every time someone leaks something to a re‐ porter, greater and faster transparency and openness might be a significant part of the answer to foreign inter‐ ference.