The Office of Elections Commissioner Caroline Simard dismissed 116 complaints of alleged foreign interference in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 general elections without initiating any relevant prosecution, according to an internal briefing note.
“Foreign components in investigations almost always give rise to delays, complexities and other challenges,” wrote the commissioner’s office in a briefing note dated Nov. 1, 2022, and obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The office added that it would have to spend a “significant amount of time and resources” to obtain all the necessary evidence located outside the country to prove the interference allegations.
“If evidence is under the jurisdiction of a country with which Canada does not have cooperation agreements, it may even be impossible to acquire the evidence,” said the briefing note….