Foreign interference inquiry set to begin Monday with first public hearings

The Government of Canada will begin a five-day segment of public hearings into foreign interference this coming Monday, January 29. The government claims the hearings “will focus on the interference that China, Russia and other foreign actors may have engaged in, and any impact it may have had on the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.” 

These are serious allegations of how foreign influences undermined our democratic due processes. The government describes the upcoming hearings as part of a longer and broader examination of foreign state influence operations on Canadian politics, and is scheduled to submit a formal report in May, adding that both “factual witnesses” and “recognized experts” will testify.

The hearings should examine foreign interference and impacts on the 2019 and 2021 general elections. It remains to be seen how the hearings address reports of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s moves to support the Liberal Party and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

The hearings follow former Governor General David Johnston’s resignation from the role of special rapporteur investigating the Chinese government’s electoral interference due to his own conflicts of interest, namely his friendship with the Trudeau family and membership with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Johnston also helped install a Confucius Institute — essentially a CCP influence and surveillance operation in Western universities masquerading as a tool of academic cooperation — at Western University during his tenure as the school’s president.

Talk about performance theatre and a waste of taxpayer dollars!

I’ll be here for the entire week to report on these hearings’ developments, so please visit the special website we’ve set up at ProtectOurDemocracy.ca to follow and share our journalism, and help keep our journalistic efforts afloat at Rebel News.

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