In his First Report published in May 2023, the former independent special rapporteur on foreign interference, the Right Honourable David Johnston, recommended against calling a public inquiry into alleged foreign interference in Canadian democracy. This came as a surprise to opposition parties and diaspora groups who’d been demanding just that.
After Johnston’s eventual resignation and the announcement of an inquiry into the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue, as well as the federal government, sought to lower expectations about what could and would be publicly disclosed.
Nonetheless, while the commission’s Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, released on May 3, establishes that foreign interference did not affect electoral outcomes in 2019 and 2021, it would be a mistake to think that the inquiry has been in vain. Following more than two weeks of public and in-camera hearings, a number of testimonies revealed how far states can sometimes go to influence opinion and silence others.
Particularly revealing were testimonies by six diaspora members, some of whom spoke about the transnational repression (TNR) they’d experienced. In a March 2024 article on TNR in Canada published by CIGI, I outlined some of the ways countries such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia seek to muzzle members of respective diaspora communities in Canada who dare to criticize their country of origin. Activist Dan Hao, leader of the Vancouver branch of the Democratic Party of China, has said that TNR is an “everyday problem for many Canadians.”
Some of the commission’s witnesses revealed a wide range of tactics used by foreign state actors and spoke openly about the impact of TNR on their lives and their community. Testimony from Mehmet Tohti, executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, was particularly harrowing as he detailed the stratagems used by Beijing to frighten and silence him, including using his family in China as pawns and, he said, having him followed in Canada.
Beijing’s actions have instilled a climate of fear among Canada’s Uyghur community, he said during the public hearings: “It touches your life. It touches your safety. It touches your security. It touches your family comfort. It touches your career. It touches your future. You don’t get sleep and you don’t know what kind of bad news you are receiving when you wake up tomorrow morning.”
The commission also showed that Iran is an important perpetrator of TNR. Indeed, witness Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion, an Iranian-Canadian activist and author, explained that he has received threats, including on social media, and physical attacks for criticizing the Iranian government. Esmaeilion argued these are not simply acts of interference in Canadian political affairs but also ways to monitor and divide the Iranian community in Canada, identify political and civil rights activists, and “intimidate, harass, sometimes even threaten community members with the intent of blocking any dissent.” Further, Esmaeilion testified that he believes the Iranian regime is sending covert operatives to Canada.
Witness Grace Dai Wollensak, a national director of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, testified that the Canadian Falun Gong community has experienced repression stemming from China for the past two decades, including “political infiltration, manipulation, intimidation, hate incitement, disinformation, assault, harassment, cyber attacks, and surveillance” as well as “persistent physical and verbal assault…against Falun Gong practitioners in the public space.” Wollensak told the inquiry that activists “are subjected to constant monitoring through being photographed, videotaped, and receiving intimidation phone calls [and] interference with family members in mainland China.”
Digital TNR is prevalent as well, Wollensak said, saying that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls WeChat and local Chinese media platforms by monitoring conversations and deleting posts, in particular, positive messages about Falun Gong. She described how Chinese censors, the CCP-affiliated 50 Cent Army and paid commentators reproduce anti-Falun Gong messages online.
Much like other witnesses, Wollensak reiterated that the aim of TNR is to instill fear not only within the Chinese community but also among non-Chinese populations: “Chinese nationals fear the possibility of being barred from visiting China, or having their families in China implicated if they do not comply with the CCP’s demands.”
What is striking about the testimonies of the six witnesses, who are members of different diaspora groups, is the similar patterns of TNR, proving, perhaps, that foreign governments are learning from one another and exploiting our vulnerabilities on our own soil.
TNR emanating from India has also received widespread attention in the past year, particularly following the assassination of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June of 2023. Jaskaran Singh Sandhu, the former director of the World Sikh Organization, addressed the Hogue inquiry and, after explaining the different foreign interference tactics used by the Indian government, including the use of Indian consulates as “a hub for espionage and foreign interference and transnational repression,” added that these tactics have a chilling effect on Sikh Canadians and their right to enjoy basic Charter freedoms.
What is striking about the testimonies of the six witnesses, who are members of different diaspora groups, is the similar patterns of TNR, proving, perhaps, that foreign governments are learning from one another and exploiting our vulnerabilities on our own soil.
Rwanda: An Important Omission
The Hogue Commission also left many diaspora groups waiting for more, especially those who were unable to testify. Shortly before the opening of the public hearing, several groups pulled out or threatened to do so, fearing reprisals, while others, such as members of the Rwandan community, lamented not having been invited to testify.
While Rwanda has long been hailed as a development and reconciliation miracle following the 1994 genocide, the government of President Paul Kagame has increasingly been criticized for its authoritarianism. In 2021, the US State Department identified “significant human rights issues” ranging from “unlawful or arbitrary killings by the government” to “forced disappearance by the government.” According to Freedom House’s 2021 TNR report on Rwanda, the Kagame government is one of the main states engaging in TNR, including in Canada, where a large number of Rwandans found refuge after the genocide. “Rwandan transnational repression is exceptionally broad in terms of tactics, targets, and geographic reach,” the report states.
In 2015, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) identified “a well-documented pattern of repression of Rwandan government critics” abroad, which involved threats, killings and attacks. A 2023 Human Rights Watch report stated that Canada is one of several countries where the Rwandan diaspora has been targeted for intimidation by the Rwandan government: “The control, surveillance, and intimidation of Rwandan refugee and diaspora communities and others abroad can be attributed in part to the authorities’ desire to quash dissent and maintain control.”
I spoke to David Himbara, a Rwandan Canadian who was once a close member of the Kagame government. From 2006 to 2009, he was the head of strategy and policy in the Office of the President, and from 2000 to 2002, he acted as the principal private secretary to the president. After witnessing abuses committed by the government and becoming more critical of its tactics, Himbara fled to South Africa.
He now lives in Toronto and is a founding member of Democracy in Rwanda Now, an organization that advocates for human rights and democratic government in Rwanda. A vocal critic of the Kagame government, he testified to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2015 and 2017. Himbara’s criticism has drawn the ire of President Kagame, who singled him out in a 2015 speech, equating him to “criminals, petty criminals and thugs.”
Himbara says he has been the target of physical and verbal threats for years, including death threats. His friends have warned him that government proxies are looking for him, he says, and he now lives in semi-hiding. Indeed, Himbara told me that the situation contributed to the dissolution of his marriage and that he had to cut all contact with his daughter and granddaughter in order to protect them. While he claims that he is used to his new reality by now, he says that he lives “like a prisoner.”
Himbara is one of several Canadians experiencing TNR. Pierre-Claver Nkinamubanzi, president of the Canadian Rwandan Congress, told The Globe and Mail in April 2024 that “cases of harassment, intimidation and spying on Rwanda residents or other Canadians who criticize the Kigali regime are well known.”
Xue, who has been the target of transnational threats for years, has complained to the police, RCMP and CSIS numerous times, including with the help of a friend at Amnesty International.
Relentless Digital TNR
While there finally seems to be growing awareness about TNR and foreign interference in Canada, these threats have not stopped. In my first article for CIGI about TNR in Canada, I mentioned the coordinated online attacks against Sheng Xue, a journalist and the former president of the Federation for a Democratic China, who fled China after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
I have since been in touch with Xue, who regularly shares with me messages she has received on X, via both private message and publicly. These include insults and falsified pornographic images. Many of these messages are in Chinese, but accounts in English call her an “anti-Chinese traitor” and “lackey.” On May 27, the user @Theskys25675511 accused Xue of “poisoning Canadians with a strong anti-China bias” and of having “dangerous opinions.” Some messages also include clear threats of violence.
There are also dozens of accounts impersonating her — accounts that have blocked her so she can’t see their posts. Xue and her friends reported these incidents to X, she says, but the company has not taken any action, even though impersonation and violent content are against the platform’s policy. Xue says things have gotten worse recently as she receives not just threats on social media but also up to 90 emails per day containing personal attacks, threats and pornographic images. Asked to comment, X did not respond.
A Climate of Impunity
Another important element of the testimony is the lack of help and protection provided to targets. Indeed, most of the Hogue Commission’s witnesses mentioned above said they’d complained to the Canadian government and to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), mostly in vain. Tohti told Hogue that “there’s a lack of protection in Canada” and that, despite a hearing with the CBSA about phone hacking, there has been no response. He recounted telling a colleague who wanted to complain to Canadian authorities: “Just you can go. It is a waste of time…I have gone numerous times…and we don’t get any result.”
A similar pattern emerged from Wollensak’s testimony as she explained that, when she complained to the RCMP about systematic CCP attacks against the Falun Gong, an RCMP officer told her they were tasked with protecting only parliamentarians and suggested she seek help elsewhere. She said she’d also reported her concerns to the Ottawa police, the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the minister of public affairs and Global Affairs Canada, but no measures appear to have been taken.
Himbara told me he’d experienced a lack of response from the RCMP and the Canadian government as well. In 2019, following a phone call from a friend warning him that he was in danger, an investigation was opened by the Toronto Police Service. But when Himbara requested information about the case, he received a letter stating that his request had been denied because it would interfere with law enforcement and would constitute an “unjustified invasion of another person’s privacy.”
Himbara said he’d also tried to get a hearing with the Canadian government to speak about the TNR and human rights situation in Rwanda, but was ignored until recently when the RCMP arrested and charged an Alberta Mountie, Constable Eli Ndatuje, for accessing a “non-top secret” police records system to assist a “foreign actor.” At the time of the arrest, Himbara told The Globe and Mail that “the arrest of Eli Ndatuje may change the attitude of the Canadian authorities who do not take the threats of the Rwandan totalitarian regime seriously.”
Xue, who has been the target of transnational threats for years, said she has complained to the police, RCMP and CSIS numerous times, including with the help of a friend at Amnesty International, to no avail. In an email, Xue told me, “I don’t want to report to the police anymore. I don’t know what else I can do to protect myself.” Public Safety Canada did not respond to requests for comment on the above cases.
New Revelations about Foreign Interference Shake Parliament
Since the publication of Hogue’s interim report, there have been new revelations about the scale of foreign interference in Canada. Based on findings from more than 5,000 documents and pieces of evidence, a new report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), an all-party national security committee of members of Parliament and senators, suggests that “some Parliamentarians are, in the words of the intelligence services, ‘semi-witting or witting’ participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics” (italics in original).
While the heavily redacted report does not name names, its content is nonetheless troubling. It cites intelligence reports of parliamentarians taking funds “knowingly or through willful blindness” from foreign missions or their proxies, mobilizing voters during a political campaign, responding to requests of foreign officials to influence fellow parliamentarians, and providing privileged information to a known intelligence officer of a foreign state.
Although the review mentions that TNR is not the focus of the report, it does make references to it by defining what TNR is. The report also mentions a few countries — others are redacted — including China, India and Iran. The NSICOP review specifically cites China’s seven known overseas police stations in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal whose purpose is “to collect intelligence and monitor former PRC [People’s Republic of China] residents living in Canada as part of the PRC’s broader transnational anticorruption, repression, and repatriation campaign.”
The NSICOP report raises alarming questions about the government’s ability to prevent and combat foreign interference. Indeed, the review states that there is a “persistent disconnect between the gravity of the threat and the measures taken to counter it.”
The report cites several problems: foreign actors exploiting the vulnerabilities in political party governance and administration; a lack of common thresholds for action and understanding of the threat among government departments; an absence of robust legal and policy frameworks, including in the Criminal Code, the Security of Information Act and the Canada Elections Act; inadequate response from policy departments and ministers accountable for national security; and a lack of engagement with parliamentarians, who, as law makers, are at the heart of foreign interference activities.
Since the report’s revelations, a climate of suspicion has descended upon Ottawa, and Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has called on the government to name the culprits. On June 10, the Liberal Party agreed to a motion introduced by the Bloc Québécois, calling for an expansion of the Hogue Commission’s mandate to allow it to dig into the new allegations revealed in the NSICOP report. Both the New Democratic Party and the Conservatives support the motion.
What Now?
The Hogue Commission’s interim report leaves many questions unanswered and only provides a glimpse into the threat that foreign interference and TNR pose to civil society, diaspora groups and Canadian democracy. An expansion of the timeline would provide more answers.
Furthermore, according to journalist and disinformation expert Marcus Kolga, the commission’s initial failure to recognize the vulnerability of the activist community to regime intimidation and TNR likely forced some activists to avoid participating. He told me in an email exchange that as someone who has been targeted by the Kremlin, he felt “that the Commission was neglecting the safety of vulnerable activists and therefore declined to participate in the first phase of the hearing.”
Nonetheless, the testimonies and evidence were so compelling that the government responded immediately, proposing the omnibus Bill C-70, an act respecting countering foreign interference. The bill includes, among other things, the establishment of the long-awaited foreign influence transparency registry, which has been debated and considered for years.
The bill is a step in the right direction, as amendments to the CSIS Act would allow the agency to communicate Canadian security threats to non-governmental entities and disclose them to individuals or entities in the interest of building resiliency against these threats. Such an amendment may prevent the situation that Himbara encountered, wherein he was unable to receive any information about the author or nature of threats made against him.
Kolga also argues that amendments to the Security of Information Act that criminalize efforts by a foreign entity to intimidate or threaten an individual would be significant and would help protect Canadians from TNR.
Nonetheless, Kolga believes that TNR should be included in Bill C-70 since the bill as tabled does not mention it. TNR should indeed be recognized as a specific type of activity due to the personal nature of threats, instead of being conflated with foreign interference. Definitions proposed by the US-based Freedom House or the Canada-based Citizen Lab could serve as inspiration. Canada is belatedly tackling the issue, and there is an urgent need for a shared understanding of TNR.
More generally, there needs to be not only a cultural and organizational change within CSIS to allow for more transparency, but also a whole-of-society approach to foreign interference and TNR, which would include more engagement with diaspora groups, the private sector, academic experts and international partners.
TNR is a global problem. As Laura Harth, campaign director at Safeguard Defenders, told my colleagues and me in a recent X Spaces discussion on foreign interference and TNR: “I don’t think there’s one place in the world where it’s not happening….We need legislation in democratic countries to address and to criminalize aspects of foreign interference.”
Luke de Pulford, a co-founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, who also participated in the discussion, believes there is “an unwillingness…even to provide minimal support to victims of transnational repression in many countries.” Canada could certainly learn from how other countries respond to TNR, including Taiwan and Australia.
Hopefully, the Hogue Commission and NSICOP have opened the eyes of many Canadians, including the Canadian government. Foreign interference scandals are making headlines on an almost daily basis. It is crucial to keep in mind that those who are personally targeted are often the ones we do not hear about.
Hogue specifically wrote in her initial report that TNR “is perhaps the greatest harm Canada has suffered as a result of foreign interference” and acknowledged that “while all Canadians are victims of foreign interference, the impacts of the latter are more present within some diaspora communities.”
Canada should use this wake-up call and moment of crisis not only to catch up, but also to take the lead on recognizing and combatting this problem.
