A senior minister, top intelligence officials and national security experts are to shed light on the allegations -- first revealed in media reports citing leaked classified documents and unnamed sources -- that China and others sought to interfere in Canada's 2019 and 2021 elections, as well as accusations Ottawa turned a blind eye.
Beijing has also been accused of attempting to intimidate MPs, which it has denied, but which led to the expulsion of a Chinese diplomat in May 2023.
"Foreign interference in our democratic institutions is a very serious issue," Marie-Josee Hogue, a Quebec appeal's court judge who has been tasked with leading a public inquiry on the matter, said in opening remarks.
She said she "will make every effort to get to the bottom of things and understand what the country has faced -- and what it may still be facing in terms of foreign interference."
The Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions is to hear this week from Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Canadian Security Intelligence Service director David Vigneault, Alia Tayyeb of the Communications Security Establishment (signals intelligence), and others.
More hearings are planned for March.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's minority liberal government, after initially downplaying the allegations that rocked Ottawa, has faced pressure to explain how it responded to the claims that Beijing sought to influence or subvert Canada's democratic process.
A former Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, said its seeming slowness to act "looked bad for the government. It should have acted much more quickly."
"What is at stake here is our democracy and the protection of our values. You cannot allow a foreign power to interfere," he told AFP.
The inquiry will hopefully provide -- in addition to details of the interference itself and methods used -- "more clarity on the government's response," Saint-Jacques said.
He added that the leaks of secret documents that triggered the scandal were likely the result of intelligence officials' "dissatisfaction with the lack of swift action" on the part of the Trudeau administration.
The inquiry does not have much time to make recommendations on countering foreign interference before the next election in October 2025, he noted.
Hogue is to deliver an interim report on May 3 and a final report at the end of 2024.
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