The final report of the public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada warns that disinformation poses the greatest threat to Canadian democracy.
Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, commissioner of the public inquiry into foreign interference, issued her final report on Tuesday after conducting a 16-month investigation into how foreign actors have tried to interfere in democratic institutions and the electoral process in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. In her seven-volume report, Hogue detailed the evidence she gathered from hearing more than 150 witnesses since the Inquiry began in September 2023.
Those findings reveal what she thinks are the greatest threat to Canadian democracy, how federal party leadership contests should be reformed and the challenges associated with interpreting intelligence. She also details why party leaders need to get security briefings and how cumbersome information sharing within government complicated efforts to respond to foreign interference attempts.\Hogue wrote that while foreign states targeting parliamentarians has garnered much attention, the greater threat to Canadian democracy is the spread of misinformation and disinformation in the media and on social networks. She wrote disinformation 'is noxious, and it is powerful. It poses a major risk to Canadian democracy. If we do not find ways of addressing it, misinformation and disinformation have the ability to distort our discourse, change our views and shape our society.' In her view it is no exaggeration to say that at this juncture, information manipulation (whether foreign or not) poses the single biggest risk to our democracy,' she wrote. 'It is an existential threat.'\The report warns that while 'intelligence can be extremely valuable in informing government and enabling it to develop policy … the frailties of intelligence make it dangerous to rely on' unquestioned. 'This is particularly true for intelligence that may suggest misconduct by individuals, such as the involvement of individual parliamentarians in foreign interference activities,' the report said. Hogue wrote that the NSICOP report cast a 'cloud of suspicion over all parliamentarians' and as a result contributed to 'the erosion of Canadians' trust in their democratic institutions.' 'The situation is not as clear cut, nor as extreme, as the fears provoked by the NSICOP report,' Hogue wrote
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE DISINFORMATION CANADIAN DEMOCRACY INFORMATION SHARING TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION
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