Trudeau government grants extension to public inquiry into foreign interference

The final report from the public inquiry investigating allegations of foreign meddling is coming later than expected.

On Friday, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said inquiry Commissioner Marie-Jose Hogue asked for more time, and he's agreed to extend her deadline until Jan. 31, 2025. She originally had to have her final findings in by Dec. 31 of this year.

The minister's office said opposition parties have been notified of the one-month extension.

Hogue's initial report, made public in May, called foreign interference a "stain" on this country's electoral system, but she said meddling attempts did not affect which political party formed government.

"Our systems remain sound," she wrote. "Voters were able to cast their ballots, their votes were duly registered and counted, and there is nothing to suggest that there was any interference whatsoever in this regard."

The inquiry was triggered by media reports last year which, citing unnamed security sources and classified documents, accused China of interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. Some of the reports also suggested members of the Liberal government were aware of certain attempts at interference but didn't act.

Since January, Hogue and her team of lawyers have heard hours of sometimes contradictory testimony about the breadth of foreign interference in the past two elections by multiple countries, including China and Russia, and whether information was shared with the right people at the right times.