Back in the Public Eye
The Foreign Interference Commission begins a new round of public hearings
The Foreign Interference Commission is back in the public eye. It has begun ten days of public hearings to address the terms of reference of the first phase of its work—focused on indications of foreign interference and its potential impacts during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. [1]
This phase of the Commission’s work covers the same ground as the report of the independent special rapporteur, David Johnston, issued back in May 2023.[2] Whether we will learn anything new remains to be seen. One thing will be absent—any scrutiny of media reporting based on selective leaks of classified intelligence addressing Chinese foreign interference. Mr. Johnston was openly critical of some of that reporting, on the basis of his ability to check it against the full texts of the classified reports. Expect Commissioner Hogue to steer well clear of all that.
What Commissioner Hogue knows she can’t steer clear of is the challenge of protecting national security confidentiality while trying to maximise the transparency of the Commission’s work. David Johnston argued against holding a public inquiry precisely because he felt the challenge could not be successfully met. The indications to date are that he may well have been right.
The government has refused to declassify and allow to be published a select set of intelligence reports, which the Commission advanced as a test case.[3] In today’s opening remarks, Commissioner Hogue noted that her legal counsel had held six days of in camera [closed door] hearings with witnesses on matters covered by national security confidentiality. The Commissioner has promised to publish and make available summaries of that in camera testimony. The content of those summaries and their timely production will be an early and important test of the Commission’s promise to find a satisfactory secrecy-transparency balance.
We also learned something else that will impact on the desire for transparency and may open up space for partisan jostling. The Commission has decided to impose what it calls a 1-1 rule to govern examination of witnesses. 1-1 sounds deliciously fair, but what it means in practice is that all the participants in this phase of the inquiry, and there are now many, including all the opposition political parties, will have to share among themselves a time allotment for cross-examination of witnesses that will not exceed the time allocated for lead examination by Commission counsel. How the political parties will like the severe restrictions this will impose on their cross-examination time, especially to confront senior officials, Cabinet Ministers and, most juicily, the Prime Minister, is questionable. Maybe they will find a way to make it work, as happens with time allotments in Parliamentary committees. But Parliamentary committee questioning is hardly an appropriate model. Commissioner Hogue has appealed to a spirit of cooperation. Good luck with that.
Today’s initial public hearings featured a morning of warm-up preliminary presentations by the Commissioner and Counsel and an afternoon panel with representatives from diaspora groups.
The diaspora panel included one surprise participant—Mehmet Toti, the head of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, who had earlier pulled his group out of the Commission. [4] Other representatives gave presentations on behalf of Iranian-Canadians, Russian-Canadian activists against the Putin regime, Sikh-Canadians and Chinese Canadians active in the Falun Gong movement. All told moving stories of the harassment and intimidation they have faced and the fear caused by foreign state intrusions into Canada.
The diaspora panel was not subject to any cross-examination. It fielded questions from Commission counsel in a manner that was clearly choreographed. Little of what was heard from the diaspora panel was directly relevant to the question of election interference in 2019 and 2021, but more extensive testimony can be expected during hearings scheduled for Fall 2024, when the Commission tackles the second phase of its work, examining the response capabilities of the Canadian government to meet the foreign interference threat today and in the future.
Further public hearings for this phase of the Inquiry will continue until April 10, with a bit of a break for the Easter holidays. The hearings will be divided into two parts. Witness testimony up until April 3 will include election officials, political party campaign leaders, and politicians (some now out of office) who have been directly implicated in foreign interference allegations. These figures include Michael Chan, a former provincial Liberal Cabinet Minister who has fought a long battle, including a libel suit , with the Globe and Mail for its reporting about him; Han Dong, a Liberal backbench MP accused in media reporting of colluding with Chinese diplomats, and who has a libel suit pending against Sam Cooper and Global News; Kenny Chiu, a Conservative MP from a Vancouver riding who lost his seat in the 2021 elections and who has claimed that loss was a product of Chinese interference; Erin O’Toole, the former CPC leader who has always maintained that his party lost seats in 2021 because, again, of Chinese foreign interference, and two sitting MPs, Michael Chong for the Conservatives and Jenny Kwan of the NDP, who CSIS has confirmed were targets of Chinese foreign interference threats. We will hear their stories. Lots of heat to be sure. How much light?
The second segment of the hearings, starting April 4 and running to April 10, is likely to ramp up the drama even more. The five available days will be packed with a dizzying succession of senior public servants from the security and intelligence community, some now retired, officials from the Prime Ministers’ Office, three Cabinet Ministers and the piece de resistance (no pun intended), the Prime Minister. Counsel for the opposition parties will wrestle for cross-examination time with Ministers and the PM—Party time!; and you can expect the media to be present in force. I count 33 individuals on the witness list published by the Commission. That’s six plus per day with no doubt added time for Ministers and the PM. [5]
If that sounds rushed, consider that after the public hearings draw to a close on April 10, the Commission will have a mere 23 days (and you have to count time for translation, and for consultations with the government on any national security claims) before its report deadline of May 3 smacks it on the head. It sounds like a recipe for superficiality, or at least a recipe for late night pizza and cramming—maybe lawyers are good at that. Because this will be a lawyers’ show.
PS. I will try to cover as much of it as I can. No pizza, no cramming.
[1] Foreign interference Commission terms of reference, Phase 1 is 1(A) and (B): https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/attachment.php?attach=44169&lang=en
[2] https://www.canada.ca/en/democratic-institutions/services/reports/first-report-david-johnston-independent-special-rapporteur-foreign-interference.html
[3]https://foreigninterferencecommission.ca/fileadmin/commission_ingerence_etrangere/Documents/Presentations-old/Preuves/CAN.DOC.000001.pdf
[4] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/foreign-interference-inquiry-fadden-1.7100381
[5] The witness list for the hearings from March 27 to April 10 can be found on the FI Commission website at: https://foreigninterferencecommission.ca/public-hearings
Hard to believe the current government doesn't have its finger on the scales.
It seems to me that in the normal course of events, CSIS and whoever would have been following money from, and activity by, foreign governments, and government would respond accordingly. Failings on the part of CSIS and whoever could be dealt with by their superiors, the government. No need for a Commission for that.
Wherefore a Commission if not to unbiasedly investigate what a government will not?
I don't care about diaspora intimidation -- I want to know if/how our elections and government have been influenced, who knew about it, and when.