The Decibel - What you need to know about the foreign interference inquiry

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

The long-awaited inquiry into foreign interference begins today. The Globe and Mail’s reporting, based on top-secret CSIS documents, of sophisticated strategies by China to disrupt Canada’s democracy and federal elections set off a firestorm. Now, the public is about to learn how the federal government handled this information and what lessons can be learned to fend off actions by foreign states in the future.The Globe’s senior parliamentary reporter, Steven Chase, joins the podcast to explain the stakes of the inquiry, what is being examined and the main players who will dominate the headlines in the months to come.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Today, on Monday, a public inquiry into foreign interference begins. And how we got here comes down to reporting from The Globe's Robert Fyfe and Stephen Chase. We have to go back to February 2023. That's when The Globe and Mail, myself and Robert Fyfe, first broke a story. The story Steve is talking about is based on secret CSIS documents that reveal a strategy by the Chinese government to influence Canada's 2021 election. The story fired up a national debate on foreign interference in Canada. But that was only the beginning. And it wasn't just potential influence in Canadian politics, but also Canadian academia and business.

I can just read you some of the headlines going forward from there. CSIS documents detail how China targets Canadian politicians, business leaders. Canadian military found Chinese monitoring buoys in the Arctic. CSIS document shows China warned its Canadian friends to be wary of foreign interference investigations. Finance Minister Christopher Freeland warned bank founders about the risk of Chinese coercion. CSIS uncovered Chinese plan to donate to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. So this was a real, almost a firehose of information that we laid out over several months. And this, of course, led to

calls for an inquiry into the matter and how Canada was dealing with this, or if it was in fact failing to deal with this adequately. Opposition parties called for a public inquiry, but Prime Minister Trudeau resisted. He instead decided to tap former Governor General David Johnson to conduct sort of a mini probe, sort of a couple of months look around on it.

And he announced that in March 2023. And this was to be coupled with a series of closed door investigations by a number of review agencies. But it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. Mr. Johnson became bogged down, at least in the public mind and in the mind of the opposition parties, because of a bunch of baggage. First of all, he was a family friend of the Trudeaus. They had adjacent cottages in the Laurentians. On top of that, the person Johnson appointed to oversee the probe had attended a Liberal Party fundraiser and donated exclusively to the party. And then we found out that Mr. Johnson had hired Navigator, a crisis communications firm, to help him.

And this was the same firm that was working for an MP fighting accusations of having close ties with China. It was only shortly after that last episode, after Navigator resigned as the firm, that in fact Mr. Johnson decided to call it quits. In June, David Johnson resigned. But before he did, he did issue one report in May 2023, a public report that said that he could find no evidence that Mr. Trudeau had ignored warnings about Chinese interference. The calls for a public inquiry only grew louder. In early September, the government announced that they had reached agreement with the opposition parties

and they had appointed a Quebec judge. So that was the first indication that we were on the road to a public inquiry. And this week, that inquiry is finally starting. Today, we're going to talk to Steve about what we're expecting during the inquiry, the questions around some of the people involved, and what the public could learn and might not learn from the proceedings. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Steve, thanks so much for being here. Glad to be here.

So Steve, the inquiry itself begins today on Monday. Can you just remind us, Steve, what is a public inquiry and what is the purpose of this one specifically? Well, this public inquiry was set up to look at foreign interference in Canadian politics. However, it has a very circumscribed mandate. It's only looking at foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections. Its job is to look at that issue, see how bad it was, see if the government of the day, the Liberal government, handled this properly. And then in the second part of the inquiry, its job is to come up with measures that could fix the system, make it easier for a candidate to fend off foreign

interference or to prevent foreign interference. Okay, so this is a very, in a sense, a very narrow mandate, and we're just looking at two election periods in 2019 and 2021. That's it then? One of the shortcomings that's been identified of this commission that it has been circumscribed so tightly that there's a lot of Chinese foreign interference, which is not going to be captured here. CSIS has publicly warned that China is the foremost aggressor in this space. No other country comes close. But this inquiry isn't just looking exclusively at Chinese interference, is it? No, the way the mandate was written, it talked about China and Russia and the commission just put out a call for any evidence related to Indian interference in our political system. And of course, this is very interesting because it was only a few months ago that Mr. Trudeau

sparked a major diplomatic rupture with India by accusing them of being behind the assassination of a Canadian. Yeah. Is there a thought that India could have interfered as well in those narrow timeframes during those elections? We don't have a lot of solid evidence or even national security data to suggest that. Our sense of India is that it tends to be primarily concerned with the activities of a subsection of the Sikh population in Canada who call themselves Khalistanis and want this independent state in northern India. And India's interference and its meddling in Canada is largely related to that. Where it intersects with politics is another question. Is it getting involved in nomination races? Is it getting involved in nomination races? Is it getting involved in leadership races? We don't have a lot of solid information on that. And

that's certainly not something that CSIS have been warning about. CSIS's main concern is China, and to a lesser extent, Russia and Iran. So leading this inquiry, Steve, is a commissioner appointed by the government to do this job. What do we know about her? Well, Marie-Josée Hogue is a Quebec Court of Appeal Justice, and she was actually appointed to that job back in 2015 under the Harper government. She does not have or appear to have any background in national security issues. Her main areas of practice as a lawyer were corporate commercial litigation, civil litigation, and liability issues. Do we know how she was picked to lead the inquiry?

We don't have 100% transparency on this. There was negotiations with opposition parties in which they bandied back and forth names that had come to them, and they had to reach a consensus on them. And I'm presuming that they reached a consensus on her. Okay. And of course, this inquiry has a lot to do with national security, Steve, really, really sensitive subject matter here. But this is a public inquiry. So can you just tell us what kind of challenges might that present? This inquiry is looking at evidence which is classified and in some cases is not classified for public release. So there's going to have to be testimony and hearings behind closed doors, not accessible to the media or to the public. And it's not the first time we've had this. There's a couple of other inquiries,

one dealing with Mayor Arar, the citizen who was renditioned to the Middle East against his will. And of course, the Air India bombing when that flight was brought down with all those Canadians on board, an act of terrorism. So there is a history of dealing with these. It's going to mean that some days we're not going to be dealing with these. It's going to mean that some days we're not going to be allowed in, we're not going to be allowed to hear what people are saying. And that's going to have to be contained in a confidential report, anything to do with that, unless it's decided that they will make public these details at a later point. So we've got the commissioner, Justice Hogue, but Justice Hogue isn't the only player in this

inquiry, is she, Steve? No, there are, in fact, two other groups of people here. These are people who have applied to provide evidence or to play a role in the inquiry. And there's two classes. A number of people or organizations have been granted what's called party standing or full standing. That gives them the ability to cross-examine witnesses and gain access to evidence, even evidence that's presented outside the hearings, evidence that's submitted separately to the commission. There is another class of people who have what's called intervener status. That means they can present evidence and suggest witnesses, but don't have powers to go beyond that. So really, the most powerful class is those who have party standing. And then the second class of people are those who have intervener standing. And that's where the controversies arisen. Because the

Conservative Party, for instance, which has been demonstrated in newspaper articles by the Globe and Mail, for instance, that it was a target of the Chinese state, it asked for full standing, for party standing, and was denied that. And meanwhile, there was party standing given to a number of politicians, which has produced controversy. What was the reasoning from the commissioner to not allow full standing to the opposition parties? She said that political parties have other venues to address their concerns about foreign interference. She said they could have hearings at parliamentary committees in the House of Commons, so they don't need full standing at the commission of inquiry.

And that is different than the Liberal Party, though, of course, who does have full standing party standing there? Well, it's not the Liberal Party so much as it's the government of the day. The government has full standing, which will be represented by ministers, who of course are liberal partisans, as well as other civil servants. And the conservative argument, the argument from the conservatives is, you're effectively giving the liberals full standing. And then they make no distinction between the party in power and the permanent government. However, Justice Ho does, she says, no, I gave standing to the government,

not the party, not the liberal party. And Steve, when it comes to individuals as well, you said there was also some questions about who was given full standing, that status, and who wasn't. Can you talk about that? There are a number of politicians, Canadian politicians, a couple of them who have been given party standing, as well as one has been given intervener status. And these particular assignments have raised concern among a coalition of dissident groups, groups who frequently criticize the Chinese government. They represent Chinese-Canadian dissidents, Hong Kong dissidents, Taiwanese dissidents, Uyghurs, many groups that have been the foremost target of harassment and bullying by the Chinese

government, even in Canada. And they're concerned about three people, Michael Chan, who's currently the deputy mayor of Markham, Ontario, but was a former provincial politician in the Ontario government. And they're concerned about him because they allege that Mr. Chan has possible links to and support for the Chinese Communist Party and has been, in their words, an agent of China. They're also concerned about Han Dong, who quit the Liberal caucus last spring after a series of articles in Global News, which alleged that he, in fact, had counseled the Chinese government not to release the two Michaels, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, not to release them right away because it might benefit the opposition Conservative Party. This is a story written by Global News. Mr. Dong has since launched a lawsuit against them and is seeking to clear his name.

So Mr. Dong has party standing, which means he can cross-examine witnesses. He has access to all evidence that's presented, even evidence that's presented outside of the hearings. Same goes for Mr. Chan. And of course, we should just say that Michael Chan says he's loyal to Canada and accuses CSIS of tarnishing his reputation. And Handong denies any wrongdoing. And the allegation was deemed false by David Johnston. Correct. And there's a third individual, Senator Yin Pao Wu, who has not been granted party standing, but has been granted intervener status. These three people have become a concern for a group that's calling itself the Human Rights

Coalition. They say that the fact that powers have been given to these men will intimidate and discourage them from testifying because they do not want to be cross-examined by people that they allege are, you know, agents of the government of China. Again, this is their words, not ours. So that is the concern from human rights groups essentially there. Yeah. And Justice Hogue has said that she thinks that Mr. Dong and Mr. Chan should be given an opportunity to clear their name through these hearings. And that's helped justify why she gave them those powers. But further, these dissident groups, they're even concerned about participating at all in the process. In

fact, they're threatening to boycott. There isn't a means for people to provide confidential information to the commission. Let's say you've been a target of harassment by the Chinese government, and you want to provide Justice Ho with this information confidentially, there's a way to provide that. There's a specific mechanism they set up. But guess what? When I asked the commission, will all the parties, all the people who have party standing have access to this confidential information? The commission won't answer the question. We'll be back in a moment. Steve, I also want to ask you about two other individuals, Michael Chong and Jenny Kwan.

So they're conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong and NDP MP Jenny Kwan. Can you just remind us who are they and what is their role in these proceedings? Michael Chong and Jenny Kwan both have the distinction of being warned by CSIS that they're being targeted by China. And that is because of their roles. She's an immigration critic. He is the foreign affairs critic. Their conduct in sort of criticizing China's human rights abuses. Of course, there's been a tremendous controversy about China's human rights conduct over the last few years. It's repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. And, of course, it's crackdown, basically destroying Hong Kong civil society, getting rid of its opposition, destroying its free press, and so on.

Both these MPs have spoken out a lot about this. In fact, I would argue one of the most important stories in this entire affair was, of course, our May 1st story, where we revealed that CESA had warned the government Michael Chong was being targeted by the Chinese government. He and his relatives were being targeted. They were looking for leverage against him because of the role he played in a momentous parliamentary motion that was passed in February 2021, which declared China's conduct in Xinjiang, its incarceration of, you know, hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs.

And it's also forcing them into slavery, essentially to force labor, to be constitute genocide. After that, the Chinese government was so incensed, they began to look at ways to target him and get leverage over him. We broke this story May 1st. Mr. Chong had not been told about it.

It was an extraordinary revelation. It led to an extraordinary scene in Ottawa where Trudeau, Prime Minister, brokered a meeting between CSIS Director David Vigneault and National Security Director Jody Thomas, where they basically finally spilled the beans for Mr. Chong, who was furious at not being told about this two years ago. And of course, we had identified in the story that Zhou Wei, Chinese diplomat Zhou Wei, had been involved in this. Within a week, the government had expelled Zhou Wei, the first time Canada had expelled the Chinese diplomats in decades. After that,

CSIS also came forward and began to identify people who had been in fact targeted by China because the government had resolved that from now on, they would make sure that every time CSIS warns something that the MPs will be warned. So Jenny Kwan is an immigration clinic. She's actually from Hong Kong originally. She spoke out and took all kinds of measures to help Hong Kongers. We're fleeing the oppression there. She has been identified as a target of China and will continue to be. And they have both been granted party standing, full standing at this inquiry, which means that they can not only present evidence and suggest witnesses, but they can, in fact, cross-examine witnesses and gain access to any evidence, including

whatever is presented outside the hearings. So is it because that they were targeted by China, allegedly targeted by China, that they were given, that they're given party standing here? Is that why? Correct. Okay. I guess I'm just wondering, when we're looking at the big picture here, Steve, if the point of a public inquiry is to get things out in the open for the public to understand, it seems like a lot of these things are not going to come out. And some people have more access than others. Is this actually going to get to trust Justice Hogue. And that's why parties had pushed for an independent justice. She is not a friend of the Trudeau family. She's not part of the Trudeau Foundation. She doesn't have counsel that have been donating to the Trudeau Foundation. She hasn't hired a crisis communication firm that's helping somebody accused of Chinese interference. So no, you're going to have to trust her. And ultimately, Steve, by the end of this whole process, which will take a while, should we expect a ruling, a judgment? What

could we expect at the end of this? The first part of the inquiry is called the fact-finding phase, and that's where there's going to be investigation. The second part of the inquiry is to come up with ideas, which will be put into a final report on what Canada can do to protect itself. And of course, these ideas are already circulating. People are already making these suggestions. There's a healthy debate on that that's been taking place really for the last year. From the reporting you've done, the people you've talked to, is there hope that this public inquiry will actually help, in the end, strengthen Canadian elections in the future going

forward? Is this going to be a help to us? I think it remains to be seen. It remains to be seen whether the inquiry is too tightly circumscribed. It's focusing really on just a couple of election periods and ignoring everything that takes place outside of the election period. Secondly, there is a concern that Justice Ho will not have access to adequate national security documents, cabinet documents, to help her unveil the true extent of the problem. It's something that people haven't heard a lot about, but I think it's going to come out more in the days ahead that the terms of reference really just spell out that she only has access to the same documents that David Johnson had access to. And that's a concern. So the concern is she might even not have the full picture then. David Johnson told us at one point in the process, he admitted he had

incomplete information. He said that there's an ocean of information and I looked at it just simply a big lake. He said he acknowledged there was things he could have looked at and he didn't look at. So, Steve, the inquiry is set to begin today, Monday. What are we watching for this week? Well, this week is sort of almost like an intro to the hearings. It's going to start off with the scene setter. talk about balancing national security and the public interest, meaning the difficulties of how we conduct a hearing based on national security evidence that's sometimes classified in secret, at the same time trying to assure the public that this has been properly investigated. Then we're going to start to hear from people who, again, sort of set the scene on what's coming, former CSIS director Dick Fadden, for instance.

And finally, on the fourth day of these hearings, we're going to start to hear from some of the players. We're going to hear from David Vigneault, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency, as well as people from the Communications Security Establishment and the Privy Council Office. So it's kind of a little bit of an appetizer. The hearings in detail do not begin until March. Steve, thank you so much for taking the time to go through this today. You're welcome. That's it for today. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms.

Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Cheung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.