Public Safety Offers No Timeline for Foreign Influence Registry, Calls It ‘Significant Undertaking’

The department tasked with establishing a foreign influence registry has said it is actively working on the project, but it has yet to provide a timeline for rollout, even though the legislation mandating its implementation was approved more than a year ago.

Senior Public Safety Canada officials had previously said the registry would likely be ready in June this year.

“Bringing the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act (FITAA) into force is a significant undertaking and officials continue to work to ensure its full and timely implementation,” department spokesperson Jennifer Allanson told The Epoch Times in a July 22 statement.

Establishing the registry is a priority for the government, Allanson said, adding that it will be launched in the “shortest possible timeframe.” She also said allies have taken more than two years to implement their foreign influence regimes.

The foreign influence registry was one of the measures included in government Bill C-70, the Countering Foreign Interference Act, that had been speedily adopted by Parliament in June 2024. It will require individuals entering an arrangement with a foreign principal to make a declaration in the registry.

The Conservatives have asked that the registry be implemented without delay, with Tory MP Michael Cooper saying Canada has “become a playground for foreign interference.”

“It has been a year since the legislation passed. Where is the registry?” Cooper asked in the House of Commons in June. “There is no office established, no commissioner appointed, and no timeline provided.”

The Liberal government introduced the legislation on May 6, 2024, the first sitting day of the House of Commons, three days after the Foreign Interference Commission released its interim report.

The commission was launched after multiple intelligence leaks in the media depicted widespread interference in Canada’s democracy by the People’s Republic of China.

Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue said in her interim report that foreign interference had not impacted the overall results of the 2019 and 2021 general elections, but that individual ridings were potentially affected. The commission reviewed cases of suspected Chinese interference such as in the 2019 Liberal nomination contest in the Don Valley North riding, and the disinformation campaign against former Tory MP Kenny Chiu in B.C.

Hogue concluded that “foreign interference impacted the overall election ecosystem in 2019 and 2021.”

While parliamentarians supported the adoption of Bill C-70 on the heels of those findings, Tory MPs expressed concern that the foreign influence registry would not be in place before the next scheduled federal election in October 2025.

During committee review of the bill in May 2024, Richard Bilodeau, a director general at Public Safety Canada, said it would take a year before the registry is functional. Months later in December, Sébastien Aubertin-Giguère, an associate assistant deputy minister at Public Safety Canada, told a Senate committee that the registry could be in place by June 2025.

When the June 2025 deadline came, the department told its Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree that the original goal was to have the registry in place by October 2025.

“Although the original goal was to launch by October 2025, the dissolution of Parliament in March allowed for a revised timeline,” the department told the minister in a June 9 note prepared for question period, which was first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter.

“Establishing a new, independent office takes time,” said the note. “Our allies, like Australia and the U.K., took over two years to implement similar systems. Canada is learning from their experiences to build the best registry possible.” Australia’s regime came into force in 2018 and the United Kingdom’s in July of this year.

Allanson said establishing the foreign registry includes some “major components,” such as developing regulations and an online portal for regulated persons to make filings to be subsequently accessible by the public.

Public Safety Canada is also working with security agencies to establish an investigative and enforcement process for foreign interference offences, Allanson said.

Bill C-70 has created new offences under the Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act, such as stipulating that it is “engaging in surreptitious or deceptive conduct” for a foreign entity to influence the democratic process.

The government will also have to appoint a commissioner to establish an office and oversee the registry.

The original version of Bill C-70 was amended, as a result of review by the House of Commons public safety committee, to include a provision that the commissioner be appointed following approval by the Commons and Senate in a bid to uphold the function’s independence.