This article originally appeared in The Telegraph.
By Daniel Dorman, October 31, 2024
Canadian democracy is in serious trouble. Based on a report released earlier this year, it appears that not only has China extensively interfered in Canadian institutions (particularly during the last federal election), but that Members of Parliament have willingly colluded with various foreign powers against Canada’s interests for personal benefit. The story grows stranger by the day as Canada’s ongoing public inquiry into foreign interference reveals the troubling extent of the problem and as politicians use the inquiry for political theatre. Canadians risk losing track of just how serious the threat is and just how devastating the revelations of the report released earlier this year should be.
On June 3, Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), an advisory committee to the Prime Minister, released a heavily redacted report outlining frightening instances of China’s interference in Canada’s democratic process. These include the creation of community organisations to interfere in specific electoral districts, the defrauding of a nomination election to install a pro-China candidate, and the practice of Chinese proxies skirting election finance laws by encouraging individuals to donate to a specific candidate with a promise they will be paid back.
It’s disheartening to hear of significant foreign interference in Canadian elections, but it’s absolutely devastating to watch the Prime Minister (whose party benefited from Chinese interference in the last election) shrug, attempt multiple cover-ups, and fail to defend Canadian sovereignty. Canadian democracy can’t survive if those tasked with defending it are disloyal, dishonest, and naive.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the report is a redacted case study in which an unknown Member of Parliament is said to have “maintained a relationship with a foreign intelligence officer” and to have “proactively provided the intelligence officer with information provided in confidence.”
As Canadian national security expert Wesley Wark wrote: “There is no other word for it. This is treason.”
Opposition MPs have demanded that the redacted names of Parliamentarians who “wittingly assisted foreign state actors” be named, but the Government has staunchly refused to release any further information, citing national security concerns and the desire not to undermine due process of any ongoing criminal investigations.
However, the report itself says that instances where MPs knowingly participated in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in Canada are unlikely to lead to criminal charges despite the fact that some of the MPs’ behaviour “may be illegal”. NSICOP sanctimoniously reminds MPs that all such behaviours are “deeply unethical and… contrary to the oaths and affirmations Parliamentarians take to conduct themselves in the best interest of Canada,” but a finger-wagging in a committee report is hardly a fitting punishment for treason.
The government only seriously responded to the threat of foreign interference after an intelligence officer leaked documents indicating the depth of Chinese interference to the Globe and Mail in February of 2023. Since then, Prime Minister Trudeau has dragged his feet every step of the way.
He attempted to avoid an independent public inquiry into foreign interference by appointing former Governor General David Johnston, a friend of the Trudeau family and a man with clear ties to China, to the invented role of “Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference.” To his credit, Johnston eventually resigned from the role recognising the controversy surrounding his appointment prevented him from doing the job.
When Johnston resigned and Trudeau was forced to call a public inquiry, two discouraging things happened: First, the Government significantly expanded the mandate for the inquiry, indicating yet another instance of obfuscation from the core issue of Chinese interference in our recent elections. Second, the commissioner of the inquiry, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, allowed three Canadian politicians with ties to the Chinese government to stand in the inquiry (granting them access to confidential documents and the capacity to cross examine witnesses). The presence of these individuals led two Chinese diaspora groups to refuse to participate, citing security concerns. With a truly tragic irony, even the inquiry meant to address foreign interference became a venue for repression and interference.
Following the interim report from the public inquiry, the government did table Bill C-70, An Act respecting countering foreign interference, but even here the efforts are minimal. As national security expert and Macdonald-Laurier Institute senior fellow Christian Leuprecht testified before the House of Commons Committee on National Security and Public safety, the bill “represents the absolute minimum the government would have to do anyway… only once its hand was forced.”
The Prime Minister’s abdication of responsibility also came through loud and clear in the NSICOP report itself. In a section titled “briefing parliamentarians,” it becomes clear that between 2018 and 2022 the Prime Minister received, and failed to respond to, at least four detailed reports from three different government bodies or advisors recommending that new MPs be briefed on risks of foreign interference. When asked why he didn’t act on these recommendations, Trudeau reportedly responded that he thought that the Parliamentary Protective Service already briefs new parliamentarians about foreign interference. That is shocking negligence.
Canadian democracy is flatlining and those tasked with defending it are at best asleep at the wheel and at worst complicit in its downfall.
Daniel Dorman is the managing editor and director of operations at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a contributor to Young Voices.
