Highlights of the foreign interference commission’s final report
By Canadian Press on January 28, 2025.
OTTAWA — After 18 months of hearings and testimony from more than 100 witnesses, the Commission on Foreign Interference released its final report Tuesday. Here are some of the highlights:
— Commissioner Marie-Josee Hogue found no evidence there are “’traitors’ in Parliament plotting with foreign states to act against Canada.”
— She did find the federal government has done a “far from perfect” job of sharing information on foreign interference within government itself.
— Efforts by foreign states to control diaspora communities, known as transnational repression, can take the form of “threats of physical and sexual violence, and even threats to life …”
— The government should consider setting up a new agency to monitor open-source information, including social media platforms, for misinformation or disinformation that could undermine elections.
— Canada needs a hotline to allow citizens to report suspected foreign interference.
— The federal government should adopt a ‘duty to warn’ policy to alert individual Canadians of “credible threats of serious harm” coming directly or indirectly from a foreign entity.
— All political party leaders “should be encouraged” to obtain Top Secret security clearances.
— Riding nomination and party leadership contests should be brought under the Canada Elections Act, and only Canadian citizens and permanent residents should be allowed to vote in them.
— The government should consider whether it would be appropriate to create “a system of public funding for political parties.”
— All electoral communications distributed during an election period which have been generated or manipulated by AI should be watermarked.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 28, 2025.
The Canadian Press
16-15
A number of the points in the highlights appear to be “soft” approaches to the threat of foreign interference in Canadian elections which serve to weaken Canadian democracy. For example:
In view of growing anti-immigrant posturing and sentiment, the proposed “hotline” to report “suspected foreign interference” is reminiscent of Stephen Harper’s proposed “barbaric cultural practices’ hotline”.
In view of several missteps, as noted in the following news item, it begs the question: Will the final report reveal that the foreign interference commission succeeded in doing what it set out to accomplish?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/foreign-interference-bill-blair-1.7350004
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/foreign-interference-mendicino-joly-1.7348515