espionage
Government-shackled interference inquiry unlikely to get answers

From the MacDonald Laurier Institute
By Ryan Alford
” the commission will receive a large portion of its testimony in secret with no cross-examination by the parties. Additionally, the government will have the last word not merely on what information is provided to the inquiry, but on what the commission can publish — even in its final report “
The foreign interference inquiry into the 2019 and 2021 elections (also known as the “Hogue commission,” named for Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue) is holding preliminary hearings this week. Those with experience with public inquiries in general, and with the Rouleau commission into the emergency powers declaration of 2022 in particular, can see it will be a failure.
When it comes to public inquiries, the government makes the rules, and when it says, “Heads I win, tails you lose,” the only winning move is not to play. Those rules, written by the cabinet in the form of a public inquiry commission’s mandate and terms of reference, allow the government to reveal and restrict information about its own failures as it sees fit.
The most important feature of the Hogue commission’s mandate is the restriction on the information provided to the inquiry: the terms of reference state plainly that if the government didn’t provide a confidential cabinet document to Special Rapporteur David Johnston back in 2023 when he was tasked with looking into election interference without the authority of a public inquiry, the commissioner won’t see it, either.
The details that made it into Johnston’s final report were far more tame than what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) allegedly told former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole when he led the party. O’Toole told Parliament that CSIS informed him that he had been targeted in an ongoing campaign of misinformation coordinated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). When asked, Johnston said that was news to him. (Subsequently, NDP MP Jenny Kwan added that CSIS had told her she was an “evergreen” target of Beijing.)
When Johnston was confronted about the discrepancies, he merely noted that the information CSIS revealed had not been made available to him at the time, and he had “reported on what was made available to us … the amount of information available was an ocean and we saw a very large lake.” (Unfortunately, Johnston could not see any issue with the political equivalent of investigating the causes of the sinking of the Titanic when directed to do so at Lac Tremblant).
Johnston concluded, based on the information provided to him by the government, that he could not attribute the misinformation spread during the 2021 election to state actors. Information coming from many unofficial sources — and via leaks — makes this untenable. Evidence also shows that Chinese Canadians in Richmond, B.C. were bombarded with slander targeting local Conservative MP Kenny Chiu on the WeChat social media platform.
The Hogue commission should add to its focus the activities of Senator Yuen Pau Woo — and the government’s knowledge of these activities. However, once again, the commission’s ability to investigate hinges entirely on the government’s willingness to hand over sensitive and potentially incriminating documents, and for those targeted by misinformation to speak freely knowing that information will be available immediately to those they named as their persecutors.
Until 2022, Woo served as the facilitator (i.e., caucus leader) of the Liberal-aligned Independent Senators Group. In a decision made on Dec. 4, Commissioner Hogue granted Woo the right to participate in the foreign interference inquiry as an intervenor, as “he will contribute the perspective of a political figure working to address issues of foreign interference while advocating for a community that risks being stigmatized or negatively impacted by counter-interference measures, whether proposed or put in place.”
Woo has been accused of adopting the CCP’s rhetoric but has denied working for China. Groups targeted by CCP intelligence operations in Canada (including Uyghurs and Hong Kongers) opposed Woo’s participation in the interference inquiry (along with that of politicians Han Dong and Michael Chan) on the ground that he would be allowed “access to sensitive information shared by witnesses or victims (and) will deter witnesses from speaking freely.”
Their concerns were aired around the same time as a report emerged alleging Woo had pledged to support the United Front, which is an arm of the CCP. In December, investigative journalist Sam Cooper reported that a recording existed of Woo briefing the Canada Committee 100 Society — a Chinese cultural organization with ties to the United Front according to declassified American intelligence — in May of 2020. In that recording, Woo advised members that groups officially listed by the CCP as United Front Work Department (UFWD) organizations cannot (and presumably, will not) be considered agents of the Chinese state.
However, a Privy Council Office report from 2020 shows that the government knew the CCP’s UFWD had allegedly coordinated electoral interference through community groups. The report specified that the UFWD had facilitated electoral interference in 2019, noting that “the UFWD’s extensive network of quasi-official and local community and interest groups allow it to obfuscate communication and the flow of funds between Canadian targets and Chinese officials.” Despite all this, Woo had reassured the Canada Committee 100 Society that they could continue their activities.
It is already a given that the commission will receive a large portion of its testimony in secret with no cross-examination by the parties. Additionally, the government will have the last word not merely on what information is provided to the inquiry, but on what the commission can publish — even in its final report, as the commission’s terms of reference refer to disclosure procedures that clearly implicate the attorney general’s power to withhold information for the purpose of national security.
This is why the first two days of the inquiry were devoted to managing expectations about how the public’s right to know would need to be “balanced” against national security confidentiality and all the other reasons the government will invoke to justify withholding and censoring information.
It is ironic that at an inquiry made possible by whistleblowers within CSIS, those at the commission will be classed “persons personally bound to secrecy” by an order-in-council issued in tandem with the mandate of the Hogue commission. Most won’t mind; the Hogue commission hired a number of personnel who did yeoman service at the Rouleau commission, including its lead counsel and research council chair.
This time around, there have been no grand public assurances that the government is committed to providing unprecedented access to information. Rather, we’ve been put on notice that obfuscation and dithering over confidentiality will be used to beat us down.
Some parties, like the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, have already indicated they have had enough of the charade. Others, including those like members of Parliament Michael Chong and Jenny Kwan, who were the victims of shocking hostility and ineptitude from the CCP and the government, will likely persist, although it is already clear that they deserve much more information, and much better treatment from the Hogue commission.
As for myself, I can only say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Ryan Alford is a professor in the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
Business
Trudeau Promises ‘Fentanyl Czar’ and US-Canada Organized Crime Strike Force To Avert U.S. Tariffs

Under the looming threat of U.S. tariffs—framed by officials as a response to deadly fentanyl trafficking linked to Chinese precursors rather than a conventional trade dispute—Canada has moved swiftly to appease the White House.
This afternoon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), announced the appointment of a “Fentanyl Czar” alongside a $1.3 billion border security plan. The initiative includes new helicopters, advanced surveillance technology, additional personnel, and closer coordination with U.S. agencies to stem the flow of fentanyl.
“I just had a good call with President Trump,” Trudeau wrote. “Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border.”
Trudeau also outlined plans to designate cartels as terrorist organizations, implement 24/7 surveillance, and launch a Canada–U.S. Joint Strike Force targeting organized crime and money laundering. He signed a new $200 million intelligence directive on fentanyl, asserting that these measures helped secure a 30-day pause on proposed tariffs against Canadian goods.
The announcement follows President Donald Trump’s imposition of sweeping new trade penalties: a 25% tariff on exports from Mexico and Canada and a 10% duty on Chinese goods. While those levies took effect two days ago, Trump has now granted Mexico a one-month reprieve—on the condition that President Claudia Sheinbaum deploy 10,000 soldiers to the northern border to crack down on fentanyl trafficking and illegal migration.
In exchange, senior U.S. officials—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—will negotiate with their Mexican counterparts on a long-term solution before tariffs are reinstated.
Trump emphasized that Mexico’s forces were “specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal migrants,” stressing that cross-border cooperation was essential in tackling what U.S. authorities call a national drug crisis.
Markets initially tumbled over fears of an escalating tariff war among the world’s largest economies but rebounded on news of the temporary reprieve for Mexico and Canada. Now, both governments face a critical deadline.
More to come.
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espionage
Canadian commission confirms ‘threat of foreign interference’ in elections is ‘real’

From LifeSiteNews
The Trudeau government had been warned 163 separate times over a six-year period that foreign interference was happening
The final report from the Foreign Interference Commission has concluded that operatives from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may have had a hand in helping to elect a handful of MPs in both the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections.
The head of the commission, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, urged in her January 28 final report that Canada “remain vigilant because the threat of foreign interference is real,” but stopped short of saying CCP interference was influential enough to tilt the outcomes of the elections.
“Foreign interference is like crime,” wrote Hogue in her Final Report. “It is always present. Its methods evolve. While the government has ways to address it, it is likely impossible to eradicate it,” and instead needs to be “discouraged and its effects must be mitigated.”
“Given this reality, the question is whether foreign interference rose to a degree that impacted the integrity of the 2019 or 2021 general elections,” Hogue said, with the report concluding that she could not “exclude the possibility” that “the outcome in some individual ridings could have been affected by foreign interference.”
Ridings that were named as targets by agents of the CCP were ones with a large population of Asians, such as the British Columbia ridings of Vancouver East and Steveston-Richmond East and the Don Valley North riding in Ontario.
In light of multiple accusations of foreign meddling in Canadian elections, the federal Foreign Interference Commission was convened last year to “examine and assess the interference by China, Russia, and other foreign states or non-state actors, including any potential impacts, to confirm the integrity of, and any impacts on, the 43rd and 44th general elections (2019 and 2021 elections) at the national and electoral district levels.”
The commission was struck after Trudeau’s special rapporteur, former Governor General David Johnston, failed in an investigation into CCP allegations after much delay. That inquiry was not done in public and was headed by Johnston, who is a “family friend” of Trudeau.
Johnston quit as “special rapporteur” after a public outcry following his conclusion that there should not be a public inquiry into the matter. Conservative MPs demanded Johnston be replaced over his ties to both China and the Trudeau family.
Government was ‘slow’ to act
Houge also noted that while foreign states attempting to “interfere in our democratic institutions,” including in “electoral processes,” is “nothing new,” “[w]hat is new, however, is the means deployed by these states, the apparent scale of the issue and the public discourse on the topic.”
Houge confirmed that the interference impacted “the broader electoral ecosystem,” and as a consequence “regrettably” led to a waning of “public confidence” in Canadian democracy.
Houge concluded that the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was “slow” to “fully recognize the threat posed by foreign interference to Canadian democratic processes and institutions.”
Of note is that the Trudeau government had been warned 163 separate times over a six-year period that foreign interference was happening.
The report did note that evidence did not “show any MPs plotting with foreign states against Canada’s interests,” but that Canada must nevertheless be “vigilant” because the “threat of foreign interference is real.”
“Even if the impact has been limited so far, it is damaging to our democracy,” she added.
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