There were no dramatic revelations from the first week of hearings onward possible foreign interference during the last two Canadian federal elections.
Instead, what the country got was a very Canadian discussion about how to balance the desire for public access with the need to keep intelligence safe in a government that by default maintains secrecy.
Let’s pause to remember how the country got here.
Last year, The Globe and Mail and Global News reported that classified and top-secret intelligence showed that the Chinese government and its diplomats in Canada had meddled in the last two elections to ensure that the prime minister’s Liberal Party Justin Trudeau took power. The newspaper published 17 articles in total and its anonymous source is still wanted by the police. The source wrote a first-person account indicating that he or she was risking prison due to frustration over the limited attention paid to Chinese state interference at the highest levels of the Canadian government.
[Read: Claims of Chinese Election Meddling Put Trudeau on Defensive]
The leaks provide no evidence that Chinese officials successfully carried out their interference plans or that their efforts changed the election results. But they raised troubling questions about the integrity of Canadian democracy and sparked a political firestorm in the House of Commons.
[Read: He Won Election to Canada’s Parliament. Did China Help?]
[Read: Canadian Politicians Who Criticize China Become Its Targets]
[Read: Did China Help Vancouver’s Mayor Win Election?]
The opposition, particularly the Conservatives led by Pierre Poilievre, immediately called for the public inquiry which began this week, after months of resistance from Trudeau. It is the first investigation on the topic to raise the question of how much access the public can have to classified intelligence.
There had been other investigations previously, some of which had been hampered by similar problems.
The first was a report compiled last February by a group of senior public officials who all had the highest security clearances and had been tasked during the last two elections with looking for foreign interference. Their largely redacted report concluded: There was evidence that Russia, Iran and particularly China had attempted to interfere in votes held in 2019 and 2021, but failed to “influence” the results.
Trudeau also appointed David Johnston, the former governor general, to investigate election cheating by foreign governments.
Using a closed trial, not a public inquiry, Mr. Johnston made a preliminary report. In it, he said that his extensive analysis of classified intelligence, which he was not allowed to describe, suggested that The Globe and Mail and Global News had misinterpreted much of the information obtained through leaks, and he dismissed some of the their specific stories as false.
Although Mr Johnston spoke out against a public inquiry after concluding it would be an impossible task with top-secret intelligence, he promised to hold some public hearings.
It never happened. Mr Johnston resigned after opposition parties passed a motion calling for his resignation because his long-standing ties to the Trudeau family had created “an appearance of bias”.
The government has also asked a special commission made up of senators and members of the House of Commons with top secret security clearances to look into foreign interference. But it has yet to report its findings and almost immediately complained about a lack of access to relevant ministerial documents. This complaint was echoed by the independent agency that oversees Canada’s security and intelligence agencies, which is also conducting a still incomplete study of election meddling.
Following Mr Johnston’s departure and repeated recommendations for a full public inquiry by a committee of the House of Commons, which held their own hearings in foreign interference, Mr. Trudeau finally relented.
But the problem – how to handle top-secret intelligence in a public hearing – persists. And the week of discussion aimed at resolving that dilemma ended on a discouraging note for anyone hoping for full public disclosure.
The first classified intelligence documents that the commission asked the government to make public, most of them from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, were handed over in their redacted version on Thursday.
“The result of the operation is that CSIS records have been deleted almost in their entirety,” the Justice Department said in a letter. He added: “It is reasonable to assume that foreign officials are following the investigation such that the disclosure of sensitive information becomes known to them. This will likely lead to an immediate loss of access to intelligence that Canada considers to be of the highest priority.”
The conflict could delay the work of Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, a Quebec Court of Appeal judge, who was appointed to lead the inquiry but was not given much time for her complex task. Even with an extension, she will have to produce a preliminary report by May 3. The final presentation is scheduled for the end of the year.
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In his guide to the best works of Alice Munro, Ben Dolnick writes: “It turns out that Alice Munro – Nobel Prize winner, most likely to endure author, object of universal reverence and envy as a writer – is not just important, but entertaining. Her books don’t belong on a high shelf; they fit in the passenger seat of your car, in the bag you take to the supermarket.
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The federal government has once again delayed giving people with mental illnesses the option of a medically assisted death.
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The exposed and treacherous coastline of Cape Ray Cove in Newfoundland, combined with fog and coral reefs, has wrecked many ships. Now the remains of a ship from the distant past have washed ashore.
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Skating’s international governing body addressed a two-year controversy by depriving Russia of victory in the team event at the Beijing Olympics, awarding the gold medal to the United States but denying Canada the bronze it was expecting. Both Canada and Russia are talking about appeals.
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Two Canadians, including a member of the Hells Angels, along with an Iranian have been accused of plotting to kill two Iranian refugees living in Maryland.
Born in Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen studied in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has written about Canada for the New York Times for twenty years. Follow him on Bluesky: @ianausten.bsky.social
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