Thank you.
Good morning. My name is Nancy Bangsboll, and I'm an independent researcher located in southwestern Ontario.
Research has proven that the Tides Foundation U.S. provided a substantial amount of foreign funds to organizations in Canada, including Dogwood, Leadnow, The Council of Canadians and many others. They registered as third parties and then worked together to influence the results of the 2015 election.
My research has been focused on the riding level, on the influencers involved in cities and on how these foreign-funded organizations and campaigns have affected not only our election results, but also, more importantly, government policies since 2015.
The recipients of these foreign funds in Canada included organizations that openly declared a commitment to defeating Conservative candidates, and a commitment to working together and voting together in order to achieve their various goals. They repeatedly did so in print, in video and in robocalls in advance of and during the 2015 election. Significant evidence of the advantage given to the endorsed candidates was detailed in Leadnow's “Defeating Harper” report and in notes from the wrap-up meetings of Leadnow.
I submitted a large complaint to Elections Canada in the summer of 2016 requesting that the commissioner fully investigate and prosecute the violations of the Canada Elections Act and any other offences the commissioner's own investigation exposed. In the winter of 2016, two investigators from Elections Canada visited my home and spent two and half hours reviewing the evidence provided in the complaint. Investigator Tim Charbonneau and I continued to correspond by email and phone until October 2017, when I received my last email from him. He informed me that he was continuing his inquiries and that he made considerable progress. He reminded me that in any case involving allegations of collusion, it was very important to speak to all parties involved, and given the scope of this investigation, they had to talk to a lot of people. He thanked me for my patience.
In May 2018, I reached out to him again with more information, but he did not respond. Weeks later, I read a statement by Marc Chénier, the lawyer for the Chief Electoral Officer who was testifying on June 6 before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. I was stunned to hear him say that the investigation into election interference was closed. This is how it was ended, according to Mr. Chénier:
We had to interrupt some of the commissioner's investigations because it was impossible to obtain the evidence we needed. In the political world, there are often allegiances. People provide mutual support to each other and that is normal.
Apparently, all of the evidence provided meant absolutely nothing unless those committing the offences admitted it.
I have only concentrated on Tides here, but there are many other influence groups doing the same things. There are so many of these highly funded organizations and activists now involved in our elections and in government policy development that it's impossible to count them. Sadly, the average Canadian doesn't even know they exist.
Thank you. I cut my statement short because I was trying to get under four minutes.