Highlights of the foreign interference commission's final report

Commissioner Justice Marie-Josee Hogue listens to a witness at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA - After 18 months of hearings and testimony from more than 100 witnesses, the Commission on Foreign Interference released its final report Tuesday. Here are some of the highlights:

— Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue found no evidence there are “’traitors’ in Parliament plotting with foreign states to act against Canada.”

— She did find the federal government has done a “far from perfect” job of sharing information on foreign interference within government itself.

— Efforts by foreign states to control diaspora communities, known as transnational repression, can take the form of “threats of physical and sexual violence, and even threats to life …”

— The government should consider setting up a new agency to monitor open-source information, including social media platforms, for misinformation or disinformation that could undermine elections.

— Canada needs a hotline to allow citizens to report suspected foreign interference.

— The federal government should adopt a ‘duty to warn’ policy to alert individual Canadians of “credible threats of serious harm” coming directly or indirectly from a foreign entity.

— All political party leaders “should be encouraged” to obtain Top Secret security clearances.

— Riding nomination and party leadership contests should be brought under the Canada Elections Act, and only Canadian citizens and permanent residents should be allowed to vote in them.

— The government should consider whether it would be appropriate to create “a system of public funding for political parties.”

— All electoral communications distributed during an election period which have been generated or manipulated by AI should be watermarked.

This report by was first published Jan. 28, 2025.

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