Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government was “insufficiently transparent” about foreign interference with Canadian policy, and sometimes “for too long, he has acted against attempts to interconnect in the past two general elections in the country, including China and India, said the Government Commission stated Tuesday .
“Trust in the Canadian Democratic Institution has been shaken and is necessary to restore it,” the Commission said in its Closing reportwho summarized 18 months of hearing, testimony and research of classified intelligence documents.
The government’s efforts to rebuild confidence was “partial and stunning”, said Marie-Josée Hogue, the Court of Appeal by Quebek, who led the Commission.
The latest report included 51 Commission recommendations on strengthening the Canadian election system, from stricter rules for the country’s political parties and third -party funding to better sharing of intelligence and supervision of misinformation during campaigns.
Justice Hogue said that about half of the recommendations “should be done immediately, perhaps before the next elections.”
There, Trudeau the government had an immediate response to the report.
However, the recent announcement of Mr. Trudeau, who is deeply unpopular, will withdraw as the leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister, is unlikely that the recommendations of the commission may be introduced before the upcoming elections, experts said. The members of the liberal party are expected to choose the successor to Mr. Trudeau in early March and a few months later, the general elections will take place.
“It seems deplorable that the timeline prevents implementation of any of these recommended guarantees, ”said Ryan alfordAssociate Professor Professor at LakeHead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. “Unfortunately, and perhaps paradoxically, it will strengthen the idea that the same attempts that occurred in the last two federal elections will inevitably take place in these elections.” “
The release of the report reduced the year -round public investigation of foreign interference against which the government of Mr. Trudeau was sharply against. Finally, it was released only after an extraordinary series of leaks to Canadian news centers, which revealed Chinese interference in the last two general elections in 2021 and 2019.
Months of public hearing, as well as the sworn testimonies of witnesses and the release of intelligence reports, revealed how growing foreign power – especially China and India – tried to support their interests in Canada by supporting or opposing certain candidates in the elections.
While the overall outcome of the elections was not affected, according to the Inquiry committee, the intervention could affect the handful of individual races.
China and India have focused their activities in election districts in Toronto and Vancouver, where large and well -organized Chinese and Indian diaspores are inhabited by some voters by highly sought -after Canadian political parties. Public hearings have shown that China and its proxy have tried undermine Candidates of the main opposition Conservative Party, which accepted the hard line of the Chinese record of human rights and its control over Hong Kong.
On the other hand, the Chinese government and its proxy have a tendency support The liberal party candidates showed Mr. Trudeau, news of intelligence information. After Mr. Trudeau was first elected in 2015, he sought friendly ties with Beijing, including the free trade agreement, and rejected the warning that the Chinese telecommunications company allow work in Canada.
Witnesses and intelligence reports have shown how foreign governments and their representatives tried to influence elections by focusing on members of the diaspora, many of whom have relatives in their countries of origin as well as business and other ties. Although it turned out that the Diaspora communities were the central point of foreign interference, the Commission has not provided any strong recommendations on how to protect these voters, Dennis MolinaroFormer National Security Analyst for the Canadian Government, who now teaches legal studies at Ontario Tech University.
“Foreign interventions are happening in the diaspora communities,” said Mr. Molinaro. “If it did not happen in the diaspora communities, you should not have foreign interventions anywhere else and the report was relatively quiet.”
Accusations of tightness of Chinese intervention, Mr. Trudeau and his government compositions his threat. But a number of leaks of news reports for Globe And Mail and the global news television network forced Mr. Trudeau Order a question.
Canada also accused the Indian government of 2023 killing near Vancouver Hareep Singh Nijjar, Canadian leader of the Sikh Independence Movement in India.
The investigation showed how foreign powers used weaknesses in the Canadian democratic system, especially in its Opaque operations of political parties. Political parties select candidates for general elections in free rules and without external supervision.
While the party boss used the system to bend muscles, the nominations were what the Inquiry Commission described as “gates for foreign states that want to interfere with our democratic processes”.
In one nomination race of the Liberal Party in the Toronto district with the Great Chinese Diaspora, buses He transported dozens of foreign students from China to support the candidate, Han Dong, who was preferred by Beijing.
According to a report of the special parliamentary committee, the Chinese Consulate told students that they had to vote for Mr. Dong to maintain student visas. Mr. Dong won the nomination in the district, the liberal fortress, and then crossed the victory in the general elections.
Given that there were details of foreign intervention in public hears, Parliament adopted legislation last summer, which created a register of foreign agents and facilitated the investigation and prosecution of foreign interference.
In the final report of the justice Hogue, he wrote that “isolated cases where foreign interventions could have a certain impact on the outcome of the nomination competition or on the outcome of the elections in the“ election district. The minimum impact of such an effort had to be so far. ”
Duff Conacher, founder Democracy WatchThe independent organization of the watchdog, said the final report underestimates foreign interventions, which many remain unknown.
“Only misinformation has much more than only a minimal impact,” said Mr. Conacher. “Add documented cases that are not minimal. And there is a killing of a Canadian citizen and a threat that the diaspora of many countries feel. This is not minimal. ”
