Justice Marie-Josee Hogue, Commissioner of the Foreign Interference Commission, speaks after releasing the inquiry's Final Report, in Ottawa, on Jan. 28.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
In January, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s public inquiry on foreign interference recommended that politicians check to see whether the people they meet are listed on the foreign-agent registry.
Good idea. But there’s a hitch: There is still no registry.
And there won’t be one before the end of 2025.
Seven months before Justice Hogue issued her report, Parliament had passed the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act in June, 2024. The registry was the centrepiece.
All of the parties in the House of Commons had joined together to pass the bill unanimously. But despite the desire for action, the government had warned it would take a whole year before the registry was actually up and running.
That year has passed. There is still a long way to go.
The Treasury Board hasn’t approved funding for the new organization. Civil servants haven’t drafted the regulations. And the government hasn’t yet chosen the person who will head the registry – the first Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner. And a lot of the work to establish the registry is left to the decisions of the commissioner.
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More than a year after the legislation was rushed through Parliament, the registry is still little more than a proposal stuck in the bowels of the bureaucracy.
It’s a worrisome failure to follow through on a widely supported public-policy priority.
Prime Minister Mark Carney promised his government will get things done. The symbolism has been all about action. But Mr. Carney’s government is way behind on a registry, despite the extensive evidence that some foreign governments, notably those of China and India, have sought to meddle in Canadian politics.
Agents of India were accused of involvement in the assassination of Sikh-Canadian activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and in a series of crimes as well as harassing and intimidating Canadians. In 2023, the RCMP said it had shut down unofficial Chinese police stations that were believed to be monitoring Chinese-Canadians.
Intelligence cited during Justice Hogue’s inquiry raised several examples, including indications that Chinese proxies had packed foreign students into a 2019 Liberal nomination meeting and that India sought to interfere in the 2022 Conservative leadership race.
There’s no reason to believe the meddling has stopped.
The foreign-agent registry is supposed to be one tool to combat interference – not by policing the most egregious cases but rather by providing public information on who is doing legal political work on behalf of foreign governments. That provides a level of transparency and makes it easier to prosecute unregistered agents of foreign governments.
It shouldn’t be the most complicated of organizations to build, either. The registry is supposed to set rules for reporting and keep public records. The ball has been dropped.
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Foreign interference is no longer the headline priority for Mr. Carney’s government, which has been consumed with U.S. trade and a promise to mount major economic projects.
The Liberal government saw months of internal turmoil that started Dec. 16 last year, when the resignation of then-finance minister Chrystia Freeland triggered a cabinet shuffle, followed by then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Jan. 6 decision to step down, the swearing in of a new prime minister and a federal election.
There have been three Public Safety ministers – Dominic Leblanc, David McGuinty, and now Gary Anandasangaree – since Parliament passed the legislation to set up the registry.
Perhaps that’s an explanation for being a little bit late. It’s not an excuse for being barely past square one.
And if Mr. Carney can’t make progress on things like the foreign registry, it doesn’t bode well for his ability to deliver on his agenda. His pledge to get the economy rolling with national projects is supposed to be fulfilled by a major projects office that doesn’t yet exist. His housing plan is supposed to be delivered by a not-yet-created housing agency.
The Prime Minister has promised to build big, complicated, new machinery of government, and yet his government hasn’t been able to deliver a registry.
In a world where U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs dominate Canadians’ concerns, Mr. Carney probably won’t pay a political price for that.
But for Canada, the problem of foreign interference hasn’t gone away.