Is Canada ready and capable of detecting, dissuading and countering foreign interference?
Canada foreign interference The Commission will present its final report on the issue on Tuesday, capping almost 16 months of work at a time when all eyes are also on the racing for liberal management and the imminent federal elections, which could arrive in the spring.
The investigation was created for the first time in September 2023 after a series of reports by Global News and that the Globe and Mail revealed alleged attempts to interfere by foreign actors such as China During the recent federal elections and raised questions about the government’s answer.
Judge Marie-Josée Hogue, judge of the Quebec Court of Appeal, was appointed commissioner.
Several representatives of the government, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have testified to the Commission. An interim report published last year by Hogue determined that although foreign interference has not changed the outcome of the 2019 Canada Federal Elections and 2021, it made Soft the rights of Canadian voters because it has “contaminated the process” and eroded public confidence.
This interim report highlighted “disturbing events” during the last two elections, which Hogue described as “a task on our electoral process”.
So what’s going on Tuesday?
What did they investigate?
The commission’s investigation was carried out in two phases.
The first phase focused specifically on interference in which China, Russia and other foreign actors may have taken place and any impact it would have had on the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
The hearings of the first phase took place in March and April from last year, the commission submitting the interim report in May.
THE Initial report concluded The efforts of authoritarian regimes – mainly China – mixing democratic institutions in Canada have prevented some Canadians from voting. “
What will the final report contain?
The report, which will be submitted on Tuesday, will deal with the second phase of the commission’s investigation.
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The second phase examined the role of government ministries and agencies in detection, deterrence and the fight against foreign interference.
Hearings of the second phase took place in September and October from last year. In addition to civil servants, the Commission also heard members of nearly a dozen different diaspora groups.
The commission’s public consultation team has prepared summaries of information received from Canadian public members through more than 200 written submissions, 624 responses from the questionnaire and consultation meetings held with 105 individual members of the diaspora communities .
Who testified in the investigation?
The commission held public hearings with more than 70 high -level government representatives, with audiences ending on October 16 with Trudeau.
The current and former ministers of the cabinet – Dominic Leblanc, Bill Blair, Pascale St -Onge, Mélanie Joly and Marco Mendicino – was also on the list of witnesses to the Commission.
The Commission heard officials of the Prime Minister’s office, the Private Council, Public Security Canada, World Security of Canada, GRC, CSI and other key ministries.
The members of the Parliament, representing all the major parties in Parliament, were also called before the Commission, including former conservative chief Erin O’Toole.
Although the next steps and recommendations are not clear until the specific results are revealed, the report occurs in the middle of two, potentially three major electoral processes.
Voting in the race for liberal management will end on March 9 and the new chief – and by extension, the Prime Minister – will be announced on the same day.
Voting by Liberal leadership will be the first major leadership leader race since the investigation of the foreign interference commission and has raised questions in recent weeks to find out if the process could be vulnerable to foreign interference.
The new Liberal leader will become Prime Minister for as long as the Party will remain the government and lead the party to the next elections.
The most populous province in Canada is also soon to be on an election. Ontario 
Experts also hypothesized that Canada could go to a federal election in the spring.
A federal campaign must occur at the latest in October.
The Minister of Public Security, David McGuinty, said that he was impatient to see the recommendations in the report.
“I am told that it is an extremely complete job,” McGuinty told journalists on Monday. “I hope that we will see a path to follow pointed by the Commissioner and his team on the way we can progress with a very, very difficult situation and very difficult phenomena – that to which the United States of America is (also ) to which each Western democracy is confronted.
Dennis Molinaro, a professor at Ontario Tech University and former security analyst with the federal government, said the recommendations concerning the guarantee of elections in Canada could be at the center of the report.
“We can expect the investigation to make recommendations concerning the strengthening of election security and appointment processes, perhaps something about disinformation and a greater need to protect the communities of the diaspora”, he said.
In July of last year, the National Security and Intelligence Committee for Parliamentarians (NSICOP) said that an unknown number of federal politicians participate with hostile countries‘ try to intervene in the democracy of Canada.
Molinaro said Canadians should pay attention to any detail on this front.
“We must seek to see if the investigation adds clarity to the NSICOP report on politicians” who like “foreign governments. I doubt, however, that the investigation will offer a lot about it, at least publicly, “he said.
– with Canadian press files
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