Pro-democracy activists boycott inquiry while allegations of more foreign electoral interference emerge

“There’s no way this government will do a real foreign-interference investigation,” Ivy Li of the Canadian Friends of Hong Kong (CFHK) told me. “It’s not only a show, what I’m seeing. What is so alarming is that this inquiry itself is a target for foreign interference, and they are using this foreign-interference inquiry as a foreign-interference tool. That’s why this is so dangerous.”

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Li’s CFHK announced this week that it will be boycotting Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s public inquiry into foreign interference in federal elections and democratic institutions, the long-delayed vehicle that the fiercely reluctant Trudeau Liberals finally constructed last year from the wreckage of the “independent special rapporteur” whitewash carried out by former governor-general David Johnston.

The CFHK’s move follows the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project’s (URAP) decision to stand down three weeks ago. The CFHK’s Li and URAP’s Mehmet Tohti say that as a matter of principle, the pro-democracy activists in Canada’s Chinese diaspora should not have to subject themselves to cross examination by Liberal party kingmaker Michael Chan or Independent MP Han Dong — who resigned from the Liberal caucus over alleged ties to the Chinese government — both of whom were granted full standing by Hogue. In a separate decision, Hogue granted intervenor status to the Beijing-friendly senator Yuen Pau Woo.

Hogue’s inquiry got off the ground only a few weeks ago after nearly a year of filibusters, procedural dodges, parliamentary committee........

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