The office of Canada Elections Commissioner Caroline Simard has launched a review of complaints relating to foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, MPs heard on March 2.
Simard appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which is currently studying allegations of election interference following recent media reports citing intelligence sources that point toward extensive interference efforts by Beijing in the past two federal elections.
“Since my last appearance [before the committee] on Nov. 1 [2022], additional allegations of foreign interference have circulated in the public environment and have led to complaints to my office,” Simard told the committee.
“I am seized with the importance of this issue, as well as the need to reassure Canadians under these exceptional circumstances,” she said.
“I would therefore like to inform [the committee] that we have conducted a rigorous and thorough review of every complaint and every piece of information that has been brought to our attention concerning allegations of foreign interference in both the 2019 and 2021 general elections.”
Simard added that the review is “ongoing” and her office is seeking to determine “whether there’s any tangible evidence of wrongdoing under the Canada Elections Act.”
She also said the review is being conducted “impartially and independently” from the federal government, public service, and the chief electoral officer of Elections Canada.
“I know that the outcome of this work will allow me to determine whether the allegations have merit under our act,” she said, adding that they will not permit her to “draw conclusions” about the overall validity of the federal elections or voting outcomes in specific ridings.
Complaints
Simard previously told the committee in November 2022 that her office had received complaints relating to foreign interference allegations, but said that “no official action was taken.”She also said her office did not notice “any significant change in the number of issues giving rise to complaints containing allegations of foreign interference” during the 2019 and 2021 elections.
Simard’s office observed 13 situations involving foreign interference among 16 complaints during the 2021 election and received “10 complaints involving some component that could be foreign interference” in the 2019 election, she testified.
“Again, those are allegations,” she told the committee on Nov. 1, 2022. “In many cases, they don’t fall within the prohibited conduct in the act. It depends again on what the prohibited conduct is and what the allegation is. Often we cannot do anything with the complaint.”
