Pulling back the curtain
What we learned from the testimony — and the big questions that still need answering
OTTAWA The Hogue inquiry sought to pull back the curtain on what Liberal politicians, civil servants and Canada’s security agencies knew about attempts by foreign states and actors to interfere in the last two federal election campaigns.
But despite efforts by inquiry commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue to get as much of that intelligence as possible into the public domain, a lot of it still remains under wraps.
So what came out of Hogue’s public exercise? Here’s a look at what was learned, what wasn’t, what happens next and why it might all matter sooner than later.
First, why have an inquiry?
In the last two election campaigns, arms-length bodies were set up by the government to monitor for foreign interference. One was a group of senior civil servants known as the “panel of five,” while a second was composed of the heads of intelligence agencies known as SITE.
Independent reports commissioned to review their work concluded the overall integrity of the elections was sound. But both reports also flagged efforts by hostile actors to intervene in those campaigns. Diaspora communities have also cited examples of how they say foreign interference has directly affected their members for years.
Then in 2022, Global News and the Globe and Mail began reporting on leaked intelligence documents that cited specific instances of what appeared to be meddling by foreign states — particularly China — in Canadian elections. Those incidents included allegations of China-backed efforts to help a candidate in a 2019 Liberal nomination contest, and to potentially direct money toward a network of political candidates and staffers.
Meanwhile, after the 2021 election, the Conservatives claimed that foreign interference — in the form of social media campaigns targeting their leader and some candidates — had potentially cost them seats. In the wake of the leaks about 2019, the Tories claimed they had brought those concerns to the attention of SITE but weren’t taken seriously.
It all created enormous pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, bureaucrats and Canada’s security agencies to reveal exactly what they knew about efforts to interfere in the last two election campaigns, to justify decisions they made about how to handle that information, and to address speculation about whether any of those decisions benefited Trudeau’s Liberal party during the campaigns.
At first, Trudeau balked at calling a public inquiry, opting instead to ask former governor general David Johnston to assess whether one was necessary. Johnston said no, but that conclusion didn’t satisfy the Conservatives or New Democrats, who argued he was too personally close to Trudeau to see the issues clearly. Johnston resigned, Trudeau buckled and agreed to a public inquiry, and Hogue was appointed to head it.
Credibility contest
Over the days of testimony, the prime minister and his cabinet ministers, along with members of the “panel of five” and SITE, sought to reassure Canadians they were on top of attempts by foreign actors to influence election campaigns. Pages and pages of intelligence assessments, briefing notes, reports, meeting minutes and other documents laid out how much information they have collected; in testimony, they laid out how they managed it all.
And, it was revealed, in some previously unknown of cases, they took action.
For example, the inquiry heard that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) acted in 2019 to stop the Pakistani government from trying to interfere in the election campaign. Details of those alleged attempts, however, were not disclosed.
On the other hand, the commission also heard that a CSIS report — which implied there was someone whose efforts to meddle may have had an impact on the 2019 campaign — wasn’t relayed to SITE until after the fact, which infuriated its members. CSIS, however, ultimately recalled some of that intelligence — a move the commission heard was rare but not unprecedented.
The documents, and the testimony, underscored the scope of the threats facing Canada and also how CSIS and others were sometimes thwarted in amassing enough evidence to act. In testimony from the prime minister and his aides, however, it also became clear that the politicians didn’t always agree with the spy agencies.
In 2019, the panel of five told the Liberal party about intelligence regarding a nomination battle in Don Valley North, judging that information important enough to pass on.
But the party, which in turn told Trudeau, pushed back, suggesting what CSIS saw as potentially worrisome interference by China — possibly compelling international students to vote in favour of candidate Han Dong — was just the everyday politics of nomination races. Trudeau testified that that was his conclusion, too.
Dong won that nomination battle, was elected as a Liberal in 2019, and was re-elected in 2021. He left the Liberal caucus after the allegations were leaked to the media, and now sits as an Independent member of Parliament. He has denied knowing anything about Chinese-state involvement in his campaign, and told the commission he’s never seen any proven examples of interference.
Dong has not returned to the Liberal caucus. It was not made clear during the inquiry whether that 2019 intelligence was the last on the issue.
The commission also never heard the end of the story of the alleged Chinese funds flowing to 11 candidates from both the Liberal and Conservative parties, as well as 13 political staffers. Is that a suspicion that’s still being investigated?
Things changed in 2021 campaign
The carefully constructed electoral monitoring system set up by the Liberals was challenged in 2021 by a snap election call, and concerns about pandemic-related disruptions ran in parallel with those about foreign interference.
While it was clear social media was an important force in election discourse, the commission heard that Global Affairs Canada — which monitored social media networks and other open sources for potential election interference — ran up against the fact it had no relationship with the owners of WeChat, the most popular Chinese social media app, used by hundreds of thousands of people in Canada.
That meant that while in 2019 it worked with Facebook to get misleading and inflammatory content about Trudeau taken down, it had no such avenue if problems were spotted on WeChat.
The commission heard that Global Affairs saw what appeared to be a concerted anti-Conservative campaign running on WeChat during a single week in the campaign, and raised it with the panel of five. But despite the fact some of those posting had ties to China, the question of whether the Chinese government was actively directing a campaign to suppress votes for the Conservatives couldn’t be answered conclusively at the time.
And it might never be — the thing about foreign state interference, the commission heard over and over, is that it is covert by design.
The commission also heard of information pointing to another instance of foreign state interference judged serious enough that the Liberal party was briefed on it. What it was didn’t get made public, and Trudeau wasn’t told about it until well after the fact.
The Conservatives weren’t warned by SITE; that the Liberals were raised questions about why.
What will happen next?
Johnston, who presumably had access to the same unclassified intelligence that Hogue does, referred his findings to the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency to see if his conclusions were justified.
That review is now complete but has yet to be made public. Its conclusions could add a new dimension to a politically charged issue with profound implications for Canada’s democracy.
Meanwhile, Hogue’s first report is due May 3.
Later this year, she’ll hold more hearings to explore how the current system for monitoring foreign interference could be improved before the next election, which is scheduled for the fall of 2025.
What wasn’t lost on anyone was the urgency attached to that work, summed up by the former minister of democratic institutions, Karina Gould, in her testimony.
Foreign states, Gould warned, “are watching these proceedings right now and are likely going to be changing how they’re acting in Canada as they’re seeing how we are responding in this very setting.”
The carefully constructed electoral monitoring system set up by the Liberals was challenged in 2021 by a snap election call, and concerns about pandemicrelated disruptions ran parallel with those about foreign interference