Commissioner of the Foreign Interference Commission Justice Marie-Josee Hogue speaks after releasing the inquiry's final report, in Ottawa, on Jan. 28.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Anyone who thought the release on Tuesday of the final report of the inquiry into foreign interference would shed light on years of obfuscation by the Trudeau government is no doubt rubbing their tired eyes in frustration.
If anything, the report reinforces Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s narrative that there’s nothing to see here, folks, and that evidence – leaked by people he calls “criminals” – to the effect that his government failed to act on intelligence about malign meddling in federal elections is something Canadians don’t need to worry too much about.
The report by Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Marie-Josée Hogue leaves the country in the same place it was in when her inquiry began its work at the end of 2023; that is, with no answers about who did what.
Take the allegation made in a 2024 report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) that some MPs had colluded with agents for foreign countries. That led to headlines about “traitors” in our midst, and to demands that Ottawa name names.
Justice Hogue says she saw no evidence of treachery but did allow there was “concerning conduct” by some parliamentarians. At the same time, she says she won’t divulge any names because it’s not in her mandate and, in her opinion, not in the public interest.
The upshot for Canadians is that there are people in Ottawa who showed dangerously poor judgment, but somehow it’s better if the public doesn’t learn their names and, consequently, whether they are still in office, are planning to run in the next election or have even been told to smarten up.
The same inability to reach a useful conclusion can be seen in Justice Hogue’s investigation into why it took former minister of public safety Bill Blair 54 days to sign off on a warrant to wiretap Michael Chan, a powerful Liberal organizer who became a national-security target over alleged links to the Chinese government.
“I am in an odd position vis-à-vis this issue,” she writes. “Nothing in the evidence really explains the highly unusual delay.” All Justice Hogue says she can conclude is that the delay was “unacceptable.”
In short, she came to the same conclusion every reasonable observer had already come to – in spite of her power to subpoena witnesses and make them testify under oath. The fact she can’t do more raises a question about whether her inquiry was worth the effort.
Finally, Justice Hogue does a disservice to the need for better transparency by echoing the Prime Minister’s line that the intelligence leaks were the work of criminals. She says they were “illegal” and “ill-advised” but fails to recognize the very existence of her inquiry is because of the leaks. At the same time, she says such leaks will only increase “if government agencies keep such incidents [of foreign interference] almost entirely secret.”
The leaks occurred because courageous people in Canada’s intelligence community were concerned that the Trudeau government was ignoring a threat to the federal electoral system. The whole point of Justice Hogue’s inquiry was to shed light on what went on.
But that hasn’t happened. Justice Hogue mostly just confirms that foreign actors are trying to influence Canadian elections, that “Ottawa has sometimes taken too long to act, and that coordination between the various players involved has not always been optimal.” This is not news.
She recommends such things as making political parties tighten their rules about who can vote in nominations and leadership races – something that’s been said a thousand times. Reaching her conclusion that the real threat to Canada’s democracy is misinformation and disinformation likewise did not require a public inquiry.
Justice Hogue also takes pains to reinforce the institutional wisdom that publicizing declassified intelligence is tricky, because the public can jump to the wrong conclusions. At the same time, she says, the great leaping public might not be so prone to spring if they weren’t kept in the dark.
“The information in the NSICOP report should not have come as a total surprise [to the general public],” she says.
But, silly us, it did, and Justice Hogue’s work is unlikely to fix that. When she released her report, she read a prepared statement, stood up, announced she’d take no questions, turned around and disappeared behind a black curtain.