What we learned from the Foreign Interference Commission’s first report

Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue’s findings do not depart in any material way from those reached by the much-maligned David Johnston.

The bottom line remains — that while foreign interference attempts were detected they did not have any measurable impact on the outcome of free and fair elections in either 2019 or 2021. Conservative party claims advanced after the 2021 election that it lost between six and nine ridings because of Chinese state foreign interference are given little credence in the report.

Comparison between the Hogue and Johnston reports reveals some noticeable gaps. A big one is that issues of dysfunction in the intelligence system concerning dissemination of reports to senior officials and ministers are not explored. Johnston dealt with this at length and was blunt about failings.

There is no analysis offered on media reporting on Chinese foreign interference, reporting that in many ways sparked the creation of the inquiry. Johnston found that media reporting had created a misleading picture. Hogue steered clear of this issue; she also decided to say nothing on the problem of leaks.

There is no mention of the importance of the work of the new review bodies, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, both of whom are due to produce their own reports on foreign interference in the near future. Give them a bow.

The discussion of disinformation and misinformation often confuses the two — an elemental error that will have to be corrected in future reporting.

But it is fair to ask, amidst the inevitable criticisms — has the commission opened our eyes to anything not previously covered by David Johnston? The answer is yes, in places.

We have learned something about efforts by the Indian government to interfere in Canadian democratic processes, and have been presented with surprising findings that the Russian government has been relatively passive, despite fears stemming from its efforts targeting the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

We have been treated to more granular detail about the work of the election protection mechanisms, especially the SITE (Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections) task force, responsible for fusing intelligence threat reporting, and the work of Global Affairs Canada’s “Rapid Response Mechanism” to detect foreign originated disinformation efforts.

The real test for the commission moving forward is to understand the workings of the intelligence system — what it can and cannot know. Intelligence may be an imperfect weapon, but it is on the front lines of foreign interference defences.

Any stiffening of those defences involves improvements to the intelligence system, whether in the shape of better reporting, better dissemination, better attention to intelligence in decision-making, more transparency for a public audience, or greater outreach to targeted, especially diaspora communities, and politicians at all levels of government.

How well will the commission engage on these issues? Hard to say, not least because of some puzzling statements in its first report, such as this: “The nature of the information gathered and shared by intelligence agencies seems to raise the suspicions of many, who may prefer to refrain from acting when such information is brought to their attention.” No elaboration is provided.

Cryptic word games in judicial inquiries are not really what a public audience needs, if the purpose of this effort is ultimately to improve public understanding of the foreign interference threat. Secrets are bad enough, without more layers of gauze.