OTTAWA – Foreign interference in Canada extends beyond elections and also affects other key sectors of society: that’s what is emerging from the latest hearings of the public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada.

Martin Green, a foreign intelligence expert and former member of the Privy Council Office, spoke today during the hearing of the public inquiry and he said that a report prepared in January 2022 concluded that China is going beyond simply trying to influence Canada. “You can’t look at foreign interference just through the lens of the electoral system” Green said. “I think (the phenomenon) is much bigger than that. In the case of a country like China, there is clearly a very sophisticated toolkit that includes foreign defense, national security and intelligence activities, there is economic coercion, there is military pressure, there is espionage…”.

And there is also the press, the ethnic one, as emerged in one of the hearings last week, when some Indian and Chinese journalists revealed that the governments of India and China are trying to influence their diaspora communities in Canada by putting pressure on ethnic media to reflect their positions and suppress topics they do not want discussed, such as the separatism of the Sikh movement for India or the Hong Kong and Taiwan issues for China.

Returning to today’s hearing, Green said he consulted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former national security adviser, David Morrison, about the January 2022 special report. He said he subsequently sent the report to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s successor. Morrison, Jody Thomas, and that he raised the issue with her during a series of meetings. Green then added that he could not explain why Thomas had not shared the report with Trudeau.

Today’s hearing of the federal inquiry into foreign interference, led by Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue, was still ongoing at the time of writing this article: security officials working in the Prime Minister’s office, some employees of the Privy Council were expected to testify Office working on security and intelligence issues and also representatives of the Canadian Heritage Department.

During the week, the former Minister of Public Security, Marco Mendicino, and the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, will also be heard.

The latest hearings of the commission of inquiry are examining the ability of various Canadian agencies to detect, deter and counter foreign interference. The entire series of hearings is part of the investigation into possible interference by China, India, Russia and other countries in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections.

The final report of the investigation is expected by the end of the year.

In the pic above, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, visits a Sikh temple – the Indian separatists – in 2017 (from his Twitter X page – @JustinTrudeau)