In his First Report published in May 2023, David Johnston, the former independent special rapporteur on foreign interference, recommended against calling a public inquiry into alleged foreign interference in Canadian democracy. This came as a surprise to opposition parties and diaspora groups who’d been demanding just that.
After Johnston’s eventual resignation and the announcement of an inquiry into the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue as well as the federal government sought to lower expectations about what could and would be publicly disclosed. Nonetheless, while the commission’s Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, released on May 3, establishes that foreign interference did not affect electoral outcomes in 2019 and 2021, it would be a mistake to think that the inquiry has been in vain. Following more than two weeks of public and in-camera hearings, a number of testimonies revealed how far states can sometimes go to influence opinion and silence others.
