Sam Cooper

Canada’s democratic institutions have been shaken, Commissioner Hogue finds

“At the exact same time that the government was failing to heed CSIS’s warnings about Mr. Chong … it was also failing to approve a warrant targeting a high-level Liberal insider”

In Ottawa’s final report on Chinese election interference, for the first time it was revealed that in emails a CSIS officer repeatedly “expressed concern about the possibility of interference” in a politically explosive national-security warrant application targeting a Liberal Party powerbroker ahead of the 2021 federal election.

There was no good explanation for this unprecedented delay of almost two months, Commissioner Marie Jose Hogue concluded in her final report.

“In internal CSIS email exchanges between Days 13 and 48, the warrant affiant expressed concern about the possibility of interference in the warrant process,” Hogue’s final report says. “Similar concerns were voiced by Participants in the Commission’s public hearings. Those concerns are legitimate and understandable given the unusual delay. Furthermore, interference in a warrant application would be very serious.”

But Hogue found no evidence of Liberal Party interference in this case, instead attributing the warrant delay to poor communication, and recommending more stringent standards surrounding future warrant approval procedures in Ottawa.

More broadly, Hogue found “processes by which information had to be passed on to certain decision-makers, including elected officials, have not proved as effective as they should have been.”

Similarly, Hogue downplayed Ottawa’s bombshell NSICOP June 2024 Parliamentary intelligence review, which looked into intelligence reporting on recent Canadian elections, and charged that some senior Canadian officials have been wittingly collaborating with foreign states. Hogue’s review of NSICOP’s findings aligned more closely with views from senior Trudeau administration officials that testified there actually was no evidence of traitorous activity in Parliament.

According to Hogue there were “legitimate concerns about parliamentarians potentially having problematic relationships with foreign officials, exercising poor judgment, behaving naively and perhaps displaying questionable ethics.”

But “I did not see evidence of parliamentarians conspiring with foreign states against Canada,” Hogue asserted. “While some conduct may be concerning, I did not see evidence of ‘traitors’ in Parliament.”

Hogue’s report, in essence, says Canada has already improved its defences against electoral interference since media reports brought the concerns to light.

“It is true that some foreign states are trying to interfere in our democratic institutions, including electoral processes,” Hogue commented, on her findings. “What is new, is the means deployed by these states, the apparent scale of the issue and public discourse on the topic.”

“Most Canadians first learned about foreign interference through media reports, and without the government being the source of information communicated,” Hogue’s report continues. “The government needs to better inform the public and be more transparent.”

She concluded: “The measures put in place over the past two years, and the evidence I heard on the subject, suggest that government is now making the fight against foreign interference a high priority.”

Partisan Concerns?

The Commission, during its second phase, explored specific controversies that intensify the broader question of whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government undercut an urgently needed response to foreign interference for partisan reasons.

The central controversy in Phase 2 involves a warrant application reportedly targeting Liberal organizer and former Ontario cabinet minister Michael Chan that was delayed ahead of the 2021 federal election. Final submissions and documents presented in Phase 2 highlight that Minister Bill Blair’s office—including chief of staff Zita Astravas—delayed the warrant concerning Chan for what lawyers called an “unprecedented” period—at least 54 days—prompting questions about why it was not swiftly approved despite its national security implications.

Hogue said such a delay could “risk compromising a CSIS investigation by materially delaying the start of surveillance. This could give rise to questions about the integrity of the process, which, if substantiated, would be a serious concern.”

In submissions and testimony Michael Chan has categorically denied any wrongdoing. In a submission, his lawyers at Miller Thomson insisted that unsubstantiated leaks have maligned Chan and that “CSIS itself will not step forward to stop this by saying that the rumours were in fact untrue.”

Multiple lawyers participating in the inquiry asked whether Trudeau’s administration delayed the warrant to shield partisan interests or to protect high-level Liberals who might surface in the warrant’s so-called “Vanweenan list.” This list, the inquiry heard, would name individuals potentially affected by surveillance on the warrant’s primary target. According to Sujit Choudhry, counsel for NDP MP Jenny Kwan, “the Commission must answer why there were so many departures from standard procedure for this warrant. Was it because [Zita] Astravas sought to protect the target? Did she seek to protect the names on the Vanweenan list? Were these individuals prominent members of the Liberal Party? Did they include Cabinet ministers?” Lawyers also questioned why Astravas requested multiple briefings on the Vanweenan list, including one approximately thirteen days after she first learned of the warrant, and why an internal CSIS email, following an unusual meeting with Astravas, expressed concern that Minister Bill Blair might not approve the application.

Inferring the cause of delay, a lawyer for Conservative MP Michael Chong wrote to Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue that: “Mr. Chan is a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister and a prominent federal Liberal fundraiser, particularly in the Chinese-Canadian community. Accordingly, a CSIS warrant targeting Mr. Chan is highly politically sensitive. This sensitivity is the most likely explanation for the extraordinary delay in authorizing the warrant.”

Another Conservative Party lawyer argued to Commissioner Hogue that “participant after participant attempted to get some understanding from Ms. Astravas, Minister Blair, and even Prime Minister Trudeau’s most senior political staff for why it took so long. All were stymied in their efforts. The imperative is therefore upon the Commission to provide a conclusion to this mystery, and the answer should be obvious. Upon receipt of the warrant application—including the Vanweenan list—Ms. Astravas realized that a number of high-ranking Liberals were going to be surveilled by CSIS, and realized that the information that would emerge from this surveillance was likely to be highly damaging to the Liberals.”

Hogue in her final report, noted that Astravas asked unusual questions about the evidence underlying the warrant, according to some CSIS officers, but Astravas maintained “she did not intend to convey that the warrant was at risk of not being approved until her questions were answered.”

“In an internal CSIS email, the individual who signed the affidavit supporting the warrant application (i.e. the affiant), who was also present at the Initial Briefing, but who did not testify before me, seemed to have had a different impression. They wrote in an email that in their view, the application was in danger of not getting signed by the Minister, and it would be necessary to make additional arguments as to why CSIS needed warrant powers. There is little information in the record about what occurred in the weeks between Day 21 and Day 48, when the CSIS Director discussed the warrant again with Ms. Astravas.”

Hogue continued, adding, “Nothing in the evidence really explains the highly unusual delay between the moment the warrant application was given to Ms. Astravas and the moment it was brought to the Minister’s attention.”

“I do not understand why no one, be it from CSIS or from Public Safety, raised a red flag and asked if anything was missing from, or otherwise problematic about, the warrant application.”

However, Hogue concluded the evidence available to her “does not show any wrongdoing beyond lack of diligence.”

Another sensitive case that unfolded simultaneously in 2021—the alleged Chinese intelligence threats against Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family—“must be seen as part of a pattern,” Chong’s lawyer argued to Hogue. Gib van Ert, the lawyer, noted that Trudeau’s administration failed to inform Chong that his family was targeted by foreign intelligence in 2021—during the same period when Blair’s office delayed the Chan warrant. Van Ert urged Commissioner Hogue to find that the government mishandled both cases in a wrongful, partisan manner. “At the exact same time that the government was failing to heed CSIS’s warnings about Mr. Chong … it was also failing to approve a warrant targeting a high-level Liberal insider,” Van Ert wrote.

In its first phase, Ottawa’s Foreign Interference Commission found that China clandestinely interfered in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections, and that foreign interference from China and states including India is undermining the rights of Canadian voters “to have an electoral ecosystem free from coercion or covert influence.” Commissioner Hogue wrote that “the acts of interference that occurred are a stain on our electoral process and impacted the process leading up to the actual vote.”

In one example, Hogue cited intelligence from the 2019 election of “at least two transfers of funds approximating $250,000 from PRC officials in Canada, possibly for foreign interference-related purposes,” into a clandestine network that included 11 candidates, including seven from the Liberal Party and four from the Conservative Party. “Some of these individuals appeared willing to cooperate in foreign interference-related activity while others appeared to be unaware of such activity due to its clandestine nature,” Hogue wrote.

In one of the most prominent alleged case of Chinese interference detailed in her first report, Hogue found that Liberal MP Han Dong’s nomination in 2019 may have been secured by covert support from Chinese international students who faced threats from Chinese officials. She noted that Dong denied any involvement in the alleged Chinese interference. “Before the election intelligence reporting indicated that Chinese international students would have been bused in to support Han Dong, and that individuals associated with a known PRC proxy agent provided students with falsified documents to allow them to vote, despite not being residents of Don Valley North,” Hogue’s report says. “Given that Don Valley North was considered a ‘safe’ Liberal seat,” Hogue wrote, potential Chinese interference “would likely not have affected which party held the riding. It would, however, have affected who was elected to Parliament. This is significant.” She added that “this incident makes clear the extent to which nomination contests can be gateways for foreign states who wish to interfere in our democratic process,” and indicated “this is undoubtedly an issue that will have to be carefully examined in the second phase.”

Hogue noted that she asked Prime Minister Trudeau whether he ‘revisited’ the matter after the 2019 election.

“He did not provide further information in response to my question at that time,” Hogue concluded in her final report. “However, the Commission received evidence that, after the 2019 election, the Prime Minister’s Office requested, and received, a briefing about the reported irregularities from senior officials. It appears that no documentation exists on this. Since then, the Prime Minister and the PMO have received additional briefings about Mr. Dong. Should additional intelligence respecting or implicating the 2019 DVN Liberal Party nomination process exist, I could not disclose it in this report as it would be injurious to national security.”

Commissioner Hogue also reported on controversy surrounding a Global News report regarding allegations surrounding Han Dong’s communications with a Chinese Consulate official and the cases of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

“According to a government summary of intelligence relating to Mr. Dong that was made public, Mr. Dong would have expressed the view that even if Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor were released at that moment, it would be viewed by opposition parties as an affirmation of the effectiveness of a hardline Canadian approach.

Mr. Dong testified that he was not sure what was meant by that, did not remember saying anything like that and added that he consistently advocated for the release of both men.

All Mr. Dong’s conversations with PRC consular officials took place in Mandarin. The public summary is thus based on a summarized report written in English of a conversation that took place in a different language. It is not a transcript of a conversation.

Precision and nuance can be lost in translation. Based on the information available to me, I cannot assess the accuracy of the public summary, but I can say that the classified information corroborates Mr. Dong’s denial of the allegation that he suggested the PRC should hold off releasing Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor. He did not suggest that the PRC extend their detention.”

In reviewing how intelligence on the Don Valley North riding was handled, Hogue noted multiple instances in 2019 and afterward when CSIS reports were recalled, redrafted, or revised under direction from senior officials—most notably after conversations with the Prime Minister’s national security advisors. This included a National Security Brief titled “Foreign Interference in the 2019 Federal Campaign of Dong Han,” which was recalled for reasons that even CSIS Director David Vigneault could not explain.

In her final report, Hogue concluded: “In the absence of any explanation for the recall, I cannot draw any conclusion from this incident, other than noting that this report was recalled.”

In an extraordinary Phase 2 development, Commissioner Hogue announced near the end of the public testimony phase that she would receive evidence from two new secret witnesses, designated as Person B and Person C, who possess firsthand knowledge of the People’s Republic of China’s influence operations in Canada. Both witnesses expressed credible fears for their personal safety and livelihoods should their testimony become publicly identifiable. Their statements, provided under strict protective measures, allegedly shed new light on how Beijing’s United Front Work Department co-opts and pressures certain community associations and politicians of Chinese origin in order to influence electoral outcomes. Underscoring the gravity of the ongoing threats posed by Chinese interference, Hogue sealed testimony from the two witnesses for 99 years. It’s not clear what evidence, if any, these witnesses added to Hogue’s final report.

More to come on this breaking story