No evidence of ‘traitors’: Takeaways from the foreign interference inquiry’s final report

Justice Marie-Josee Hogue, Commissioner of the Foreign Interference Commission, speaks after releasing the inquiry's Final Report, in Ottawa, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

OTTAWA — While Canada’s democratic institutions remain “robust,” with “no evidence of ‘traitors’” in Parliament, the federal government should take steps to better safeguard democratic institutions and better inform the public of foreign interference threats, according to the final report from the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference.

The final report by Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue was released Tuesday after she was granted a month-long extension.

It includes seven volumes, and lays out 51 recommendations for the federal government, nearly half of which she says should be considered before the next election.

“This is not a new phenomenon, nor should it surprise us,” Hogue said in a press conference following release of the report. “States have been trying to interfere with each other since the dawn of time.”

“What is new, however, are the means being deployed by these states, the extent to which the phenomenon seems to be taking hold, and the fact that it is being talked about publicly,” she added.

In the 16 months since Hogue was first tapped to head up the inquiry, amid mounting concern around foreign interference in Canada, she’s heard from more than 100 witnesses and 60 experts and diaspora members, and examined “tens of thousands of documents.”

CTV News has reviewed the final report. Here are some of the key takeaways.

‘No evidence’ of ‘traitors’ in Parliament: Commissioner

A late-in-the-game addition to Hogue’s study stemmed from a bombshell report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) report last June, stating some parliamentarians were “semi-witting or witting” participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in Canadian affairs.

“There are legitimate concerns about parliamentarians potentially having problematic relationships with foreign officials, exercising poor judgment, behaving naively and perhaps displaying questionable ethics,” Hogue wrote in her final report. “But I did not see evidence of parliamentarians conspiring with foreign states against Canada.”

“While some conduct may be concerning, I did not see evidence of ‘traitors’ in Parliament,” she added.

Hogue calls investigating the conclusions from the NSICOP report “a particularly challenging task.”

She writes that while she reviewed the classified version of the NSICOP report, she also “requested and reviewed consideration additional information that NSICOP did not have, including the raw intelligence and operational reporting underlying the allegations.”

The commissioner also states the NSICOP report does not include a list of parliamentarians who are suspected of engaging in foreign interference activities, contrary to what some believed at the time.

“The NSICOP report made strongly worded and unequivocally stated allegations against individual parliamentarians,” Hogue writes. “These assertions had the (perhaps unintended) effect of causing widespread public consternation, casting a cloud of suspicion over all parliamentarians and contributing to the erosion of Canadians’ trust in their democratic institutions.”

Hogue in her report deviates from the conclusions drawn in the NSICOP report, which she calls “more definitive than the underlying intelligence could support.”

India ‘second most active country’ interfering in Canada

While Hogue’s initial report in May pointed to China as the “most persistent and sophisticated foreign interference threat to Canada,” the commissioner’s final report lays out the ways in which India has become the “second most active country engaging in electoral foreign interference in Canada.”

The heightened scrutiny on India and its attempts to interfere in Canadian politics comes amid nearly a year and a half of tense relations between the two countries.

In September 2023, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood up in Parliament to state there were “credible allegations” agents of the Indian government were involved in the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in B.C. three months prior.

Around the same time, Canada paused talks with India on a trade agreement between the two countries, negotiations on which have yet to be resumed.

Last October, the RCMP revealed it had credible evidence linking Indian diplomats and consular officials to clandestine and serious criminal activity in this country. The stunning allegations came as the Canadian government announced it was expelling six Indian diplomats the RCMP had identified as “persons of interest” in Nijjar’s murder.

India has repeatedly denied all allegations related to Nijjar’s death.

Hogue states efforts to improve bilateral relations between Canada and India have consequently been “derailed.”

“Like the PRC (People’s Republic of China), India conducts foreign interference through diplomatic officials in Canada and through proxies,” Hogue writes. “A body of intelligence indicates that proxy agents may have, and may continue to be, clandestinely providing illicit financial support to various Canadian politicians in an attempt to secure the election of pro-India candidates or gain influence over candidates who take office.”

“The intelligence does not necessarily indicate that the elected officials or candidates involved were aware of the interference attempts, or that the attempts necessarily succeeded,” she added.

In a statement posted to social media Tuesday afternoon, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said his government has seen Hogue’s report, and that it rejects the “insinuations” therein.

The report names Russia, Pakistan, and Iran as other countries considered foreign interference threats to Canada.

Foreign interference did not change election outcome

Hogue’s initial report concluded that while foreign interference did take place during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, it did not affect the outcome or the overall result of those elections.

Foreign interference may have changed the results in some ridings, Hogue also concluded, but adding it’s nearly impossible to know for certain.

Hogue reached the same conclusions in her final report, adding: “While any attempted interference is troubling, I am reassured by the minimal impact such efforts have had to date.”

Outside of the election periods themselves, Hogue states in her report she didn’t see “any evidence” of government decisions being swayed by foreign interference, including legislation, regulation or policy being adopted or abandoned as a result of foreign meddling.

Communication with the public ‘lacking’

Hogue in her report applauds “the competence, dedication and experience of the members of Canada’s senior public service and national security and intelligence community,” but adds the government’s response when it comes to foreign interference has been “far from perfect.”

The commissioner states that the government has “sometimes taken too long to act,” that there have been issues with the processes in place to communicate information to decision-makers, and that “the government has proven to be a poor communicator and insufficiently transparent when it comes to foreign interference.”

She makes several recommendations in her report aimed at improving communication with the public, namely developing a “government-wide communications strategy” when it comes to foreign interference, and other suggestions to help develop the public’s digital and media literacy.

Hogue calls misinformation and disinformation an “existential threat” to democracy, and much of her report focuses on that issue.

There are also other mechanisms in place to monitor foreign interference risks during election periods themselves, such as the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol, and the Panel of Five senior public servants.

A common question arising from reviews by those various bodies is whether the threshold for informing the public of an instance of foreign interference, in real time, should change.

“The threshold for an announcement is high because intervening in an election is not something that can be done lightly,” Hogue writes. “There is a risk that Panel intervention might do more harm than good since the moment a public announcement about foreign interference is made, confidence in the election could be undermined and negatively affect public confidence in Canada’s democracy.”

Hogue pointed to a specific example of PRC officials and state media commenting on the election “with an apparent aim to convince Chinese Canadians to vote against the Conservative Party and (former Conservative leader Erin) O’Toole.

She concludes she’s satisfied those activities did not meet the threshold for a public announcement, but added: “misinformation or suspected disinformation during the election period.”

“It does not help that there are no clear guidelines for when government will act short of a public announcement by the Panel,” Hogue wrote.

While Hogue does not conclude either way whether the threshold should change, she does say it’s an issue that needs “to be addressed,” and recommends that a “less drastic measure than a public announcement” be considered in certain circumstances.

Recommendations aimed at intelligence gathering, sharing

Many of Hogue’s recommendations also pertain to communication between security and intelligence agencies and government.

In her report, she lays out four specific instances in which potential problems with the flow of information within government were highlighted. She also outlines conclusions she drew from those examples, and how the outcome of the situation may have changed if communication between agencies were improved.

Of Hogue’s 51 recommendations, the first five have to do with intelligence and how it’s communicated to political officials and decision-makers.

Among Hogue’s other suggestions: a renewed national security strategy, including a whole-of-government foreign interference strategy and a public timeline for its completion; for all party leaders to receive top secret security clearance; developing a legislative framework to authorize collecting and assessing open-source domestic intelligence in a way that respects the privacy rights of Canadians; and a series of changes related to party nomination and leadership races.

“The Government will carefully review the Final Report’s findings and recommendations and they must guide the government’s ongoing efforts to strengthen Canada’s defences against foreign interference,” according to a press release from Democratic Institutions Minister Ruby Sahota and Public Safety Minister David McGuinty on Tuesday.

McGuinty was also the chair of NSICOP.

In a press conference on Tuesday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said his key takeaway from the report was Hogue’s concerns about misinformation and disinformation, and the role those play in efforts by foreign governments to meddle in Canadian politics.

“I’ve instructed my party, my national director and team, to follow all of the recommendations as it relates to political parties, so that we’re doing our part,” Singh said. “I encourage other political leaders to do the same.”

With files from CTV News’ Brennan MacDonald