Elections Commissioner’s Office Dismissed 116 Complaints Alleging Foreign Interference: Report

Commissioner of Canada Elections Caroline Simard waits to appear before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 2, 2023. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

The Office of Elections Commissioner Caroline Simard dismissed 116 complaints of alleged foreign interference in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 general elections without initiating any relevant prosecution, according to an internal briefing note.

“Foreign components in investigations almost always give rise to delays, complexities and other challenges,” wrote the commissioner’s office in a briefing note dated Nov. 1, 2022, and obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.

The office added that it would have to spend a “significant amount of time and resources” to obtain all the necessary evidence located outside the country to prove the interference allegations.

“If evidence is under the jurisdiction of a country with which Canada does not have cooperation agreements, it may even be impossible to acquire the evidence,” said the briefing note.

Ms. Simard’s office added that it received 16 complaints alleging foreign interference in Canada’s 2021 general election, all of which it dismissed.

The office also said it received 158 complaints of interference in the 2019 election and dismissed 100 of them, but did not explain what it did with the remainder.

“Investigations into foreign interference will inevitably continue to raise difficult issues,” said the briefing note, adding that the office had taken “no formal measures” regarding the allegations.

Foreign Interference

Ms. Simard’s office prepared the note shortly before allegations of foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections began surfacing in multiple reports by Global News and The Globe and Mail citing secret intelligence sources.

The allegations have been a source of cross-party contention in the House of Commons, with all opposition parties repeatedly calling on the Liberal government to establish an independent, public inquiry to investigate.

Opposition party leaders and the government are currently in the midst of discussions on the matter, while Ottawa has hinted at but not guaranteed it will call a public inquiry.

Ms. Simard told the Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in March that her office had launched a review of the foreign interference complaints relating to the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

Ms. Simard did not disclose at the time how many complaints her office had received and dismissed since then but said it had “conducted a rigorous and thorough review of every piece of information” that had been brought to its attention regarding foreign interference in the last two federal elections.

“This review is ongoing to determine whether there is any tangible evidence of wrongdoing under the Canada Elections Act,” she told the committee on March 2, adding that she could not provide further details about it for “reasons of confidentiality.”