I'm raising my concerns now because under Bill C-63, such speech may be outlawed

You’ve got to feel at least a twinge of pity for Justice Marie-Josée Hogue. She’s the head of the public inquiry into foreign interference that is only now getting off the ground, 16 months after leaked intelligence first revealed that Beijing ran elaborate election-interference operations to the benefit of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party in 2019 and 2021, and the government knew it but did nothing about it.

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Among the questions Hogue has to properly sort out, this one rarely gets a proper look-in: when we say “foreign” interference, what do we mean by “foreign,” exactly?

At stake is Hogue’s credibility and the already-battered credibility of the entire Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, which was established last September only after the House of Commons forced it on Trudeau’s minority Liberal government.

Hogue’s inquiry took over from the total collapse of credibility that “special rapporteur” David Johnston brought upon his appointment to look into China’s election interference operations, which had been Prime Minister Trudeau’s substitute for the public inquiry the Opposition was demanding. But the same dark cloud has been hovering above Hogue’s exertions ever since.

You could say that at least she’s trying. On Monday, without any public announcement, Hogue buckled to pressure and finally granted FULL standing to the Conservative party, the New Democrats, the Bloc Québécois and former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, who the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says was specifically targeted for defeat by Chinese diplomats and by Beijing’s Canadian proxies during the 2021 federal election.

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