Final report mostly a cover-up that fails to recommend key changes needed to stop disinformation, secret foreign spending during nomination and party leadership contests and elections, secret political fundraising and lobbying, and funnelling big money amounts into our system

Final report also fails to recommend key changes to strengthen Canada’s enforcement entities which all lack independence from ruling party Cabinet, are slow to act, ineffective, secretive and unaccountable

Any party that acts to cause an election before all the key changes are made should be shunned by voters for supporting foreign interference

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, January 28, 2025

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch called the recommendations for changes set out in final report of the Hogue Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Canadian politics incomplete, mostly a cover-up, and much too weak to stop interference because they ignore a “dirty dozen” loopholes that make secret, unethical and undemocratic foreign interference activities easy to get away with, and also ignore 10 systemic flaws that make Canada’s anti-interference enforcement system ineffective.

Commissioner Hogue’s final report essentially ignores the significant likelihood that foreign governments, and foreign businesses and other entities (which the Inquiry didn’t even consider) use multiple proxies to obscure that they are funding or supporting interference activities and, as a result, the changes the report recommends do almost nothing to prevent foreign interference activities (which is the only effective way to stop the activities), and far from enough to effectively prohibit or penalize the activities.

At the same time, the report called for some key changes that should be implemented before a federal election occurs, and all federal parties and party leaders should set aside their partisan self-interest and, after Parliament opens up again, take a few weeks to pass a bill making the changes, and other key changes (in the same way the parties passed Bill C-70 in five weeks last May-June).

Disturbingly, Commissioner Hogue concludes that foreign interference activities have had “minimal impact” on Canadian politics (Vol. 1, p. 3), which no one should claim because it is impossible to know that given it is legal to do many of the activities in secret, and the Commissioner’s conclusion also contradicts her findings that interference activities, especially disinformation and threats from foreign governments against people who have immigrated here from some countries, are having a major impact.

Also disturbingly, Commissioner Hogue writes that she had “access to all the documents I deemed relevant, without redactions for national security reasons” (Vol. 1, p. 2), but the final report does not make it clear how many documents the Trudeau Cabinet withheld completely from the Inquiry (Vol. 2, pp. 71-76).  As of last June, the Trudeau Cabinet was withholding an unknown number of documents, and had redacted about 3,000 documents submitted to the inquiry.  How can Commissioner Hogue conclude she had access to all relevant documents if she didn’t even see some of the Trudeau Cabinet documents?

“Very unfortunately, the Hogue Inquiry’s final report is mostly a cover-up that ignores a dozen loopholes in federal laws that make secret, unethical and undemocratic foreign interference activities easy to get away with, and ignores the many serious flaws that make Canada’s anti-interference enforcement system partisan, Cabinet-controlled, slow to act, ineffective, secretive and largely unaccountable,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch. “However, the report calls for some key changes that must be made before a federal election occurs, and all parties should quickly pass a bill making these and other key changes after Parliament opens, and any party that doesn’t support doing this should be shunned by voters for supporting foreign interference.”

Commissioner Hogue cannot claim that she did not know about all the dozen loopholes in laws and 10 systemic weaknesses in Canada’s anti-interference enforcement system that make foreign interference easy to get away with and cover up.  While the Inquiry’s lawyers and Research Council negligently ignored these loopholes, and did not conduct a “rigorous and thorough investigation” as the final report inaccurately claims (Vol. 1, p. 2), Democracy Watch intervened in the Inquiry, and submitted 6 detailed, comprehensive policy papers as well as a report on the loopholes in Bill C-70 (which was enacted by Parliament in June) that detailed the loopholes.

Democracy Watch’s final submission filed in November contains links to all 6 policy papers, and summarizes the key points and recommendations for key changes set out in the papers.  Democracy Watch was represented at the Inquiry by Wade Poziomka and Nick Papageorge of Ross & McBride LLP.

Democracy Watch also submitted to a House Committee in November a detailed analysis of the loopholes left open by Bill C-65, which proposed changes to Canada’s election law but was derailed by Prime Minister Trudeau’s prorogation of Parliament.  The Hogue Inquiry’s final report essentially recommends the same changes contained in Bill C-65 plus a few other changes.

To see what the Hogue Inquiry ignored and covered up, click here to see the “dirty dozen” loopholes in federal laws that allow foreign “proxies” to spend unlimited funds in secret in nomination and party leadership contests, to do disinformation campaigns, to hide their funders, and to fundraise and lobby in secret, and high donation limits make it easy to funnel big money amounts into our system, and the 10 key systemic enforcement flaws that make Canada’s anti-interference enforcement system partisan, Cabinet-controlled, slow to act, ineffective, secretive and largely unaccountable.

The few key changes called for in the Hogue Inquiry’s final report that would close only some of the loopholes in the current laws that cover voting in nomination and party leadership contests, disinformation, donations, loans and “third-party” (interest-group) spending during nomination and party leadership contests and elections, and between elections, are contained in recommendations 11, 31-32, 40-43 and 49 of the report (Vol. 5, pp. 51, 55 and 57-59, and see details also in Vol. 5).  All federal parties and party leaders should support passing a bill that makes these changes, and more, before a federal election happens.

Click here to see the Backgrounder that summarizes all the loopholes and weak enforcement problems that make foreign interference legal and easy to do across Canada at every level of government.  Click here to see summary list of 17 key changes that need to be made to stop foreign interference.

– 30 –

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443
Email: [email protected]

Democracy Watch’s Stop Foreign Interference in Canadian Politics Campaign and Honesty in Politics Campaign and Money in Politics Campaign and Stop Secret Unethical Lobbying Campaign and Government Ethics Campaign and Stop Bad Government Appointments Campaign