Foreign interference failure
Legislation won’t stop Chinese meddling
GOOD LUCK GETTING THE PARTIES TO OWN UP AND NULLIFY NOMINATIONS.
— TASHA KHEIRIDDIN
The most one can say about the Liberals’ foreign interference legislation is “better late than never.” Bill C-70, An Act Respecting Countering Foreign Interference, was put on the order paper mere hours after the filing of Justice Marie-josée Hogue’s report on Friday, and introduced in the House of Commons on Monday. The bill would amend the CSIS Act, the Security of Information Act, the Canada Evidence Act and the Criminal Code to create new offences related to foreign interference, as well as establish a foreign agents’ registry, which the Conservatives have been pressing for since 2021.
The timing of C-70 makes clear that it was drafted while the Commission was conducting its hearings, and possibly begun before they began. The government knew all along there was a problem, despite what Special Rapporteur David Johnston said last April, and could have dealt with this issue far sooner.
Time is of the essence, not just because Canadians will go to the polls no later than October 2025, but because candidates are being nominated to run in that election as we speak. A lot of races are taking place, prompted by a raft of Liberals who are not standing for reelection and the redrawing of the electoral map in April, creating new electoral districts and changing existing boundaries.
We didn’t need the commission to tell us that the nomination process is a weak link in the chain of foreign interference. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knew this back in 2019, when he was apprised of concerns about the busing of Chinese foreign students to vote in the nomination of Liberal candidate Han Dong in Don Valley North. Had the government acted on this information then, it could have put measures in place to curtail interference in nominations for the 2025 election.
But not only is Bill C-70 too late for that, it doesn’t directly address nominations at all. The legislation creates a general offence under the Security of Information Act of “engaging in surreptitious or deceptive conduct, at the direction of or in association with a foreign entity, with the intent to influence, among other things, the exercise of a democratic right in Canada.” But by the time such acts are committed, the perpetrators won’t care, especially if they are diplomats who are immune from prosecution or can just hightail it out of the country.
And good luck getting the parties to own up and nullify nominations — as Trudeau says, it would have been “a very significant step” to remove Dong, one that parties are loath to take, especially if the candidate in question is leading in the polls.
Currently, the Elections Act doesn’t cover nominations because “each party oversees its own races and has its own rules.” Canada’s chief electoral officer, Stéphane Perrault, told the House Affairs Committee in March that, “The rules for nominations come under party authority and so if there was a problem, it would be up to CSIS to get involved.” At the time, an Elections Canada spokesperson said it would take “legislative changes” to give the agency a larger oversight role in party nomination votes.
Well, the time for those changes is now, if not yesterday. It would have been easy for C-70 to amend the Elections Act to require that anyone participating in the electoral process in any form, including party nominations, must be a Canadian citizen, full stop. Not a permanent resident, not a non-resident, as is permitted for certain activities under the current Elections Canada Act.
Bill C-70 could also curtail campaigns to have non-citizens, mostly permanent residents, vote in municipal elections. The most recent effort was a motion passed by Calgary City Council, asking that permanent residents be allowed to vote in Calgary. The province refused to make the change, as have other provincial governments faced with similar demands.
It stands to reason that it is even easier for a foreign government to intimidate its own citizens than Canadian citizens. The federal government should amend its foreign interference bill to limit the possibility of such interference by amending the Elections Canada Act. It should also expedite passage of C-70 to take effect before Canadians return to the polls, unless it wants to see this movie all over again.