- By Nadine Yousif
- BBC News, Toronto
1 hour ago
picture description,
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he doesn’t think the interference efforts have affected the results of the last two federal elections in which he was re-elected
In recent weeks, Canadian media have released a steady barrage of reports based on leaked information detailing allegations of Chinese interference in the country’s last two federal elections in 2019 and 2021 – the latest western nation to be sued over foreign election concerns Alarm sounds interference.
Chinese officials have denied any interference, calling the allegations “purely baseless and defamatory” in a statement to the BBC.
The efforts are not believed to have changed the results of the two general elections, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is under pressure to launch a national public inquiry into allegations that have already strained diplomatic relations between the two countries.
On Thursday, the Federal Elections Commission launched an investigation into the allegations.
What are the claims?
The allegations stem from leaked intelligence reports that Beijing diplomats and proxies in Canada tried to sway the election results in favor of the Liberals.
According to a series of reports in the Globe and Mail newspaper and Global News, intelligence sources are concerned that China’s Communist Party has intervened by pressuring its consulates in Canada to support certain candidates.
Key claims in the reports include:
Conservative politicians have publicly said they were aware of interference in the 2021 race, which officials reported as a concern, and believe it cost them several seats – although it wasn’t enough to change the election result that Mr Trudeau ‘s Liberals won by a margin of 41 seats .
China’s state news agency Xinhua reported this week that on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi, Qin Gang dismissed the media reports as “rumours” and “hype” when speaking to his Canadian counterpart Melanie Joly.
Ms Joly said in a statement that she said Canada would not tolerate any form of interference in the country’s internal affairs.
How was the response?
The steady stream of stories with concrete accounts of apparent interference has stirred Canadian politics, raising questions about what Mr. Trudeau and his party knew about China’s interference – and when.
Mr Trudeau said he believed there were “many inaccuracies” in the reports but said there were “continued efforts” by China and other countries to meddle in Canada’s democracy.
He said he would leave it to a House of Commons committee to look into the matter and said he was satisfied with an ongoing parliamentary inquiry that began in November.
Federal opposition parties — the New Democrats and the Conservatives — are pushing for an “independent and public” investigation into the accounts.
Their calls were echoed by Canada’s former Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley and Richard Fadden, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
Mr Fadden told the BBC that he believed an investigation was needed to determine what Canada can do in the future to prevent similar attempts at interference.
“It would shed some light on how big the problem is at the constituency level because we don’t have much information about it,” he added.
Others have called it a “bad idea” because much of the information is by law kept behind the veil of highly classified intelligence documents.
“The public would not be any wiser as to the details,” said intelligence and security expert Wesley Wark.
And while the public deserves to know about threats to national security, he feared “general suggestions” that members of a diaspora community might be disloyal to Canada or vulnerable to foreign campaigning.
What do we know about foreign interference in Canada?
Concerns about foreign actors meddling in Canadian affairs are not new.
In 2021, the CSIS said it continued to observe “steady and, in some cases, increasing” foreign interference and warned that this type of interference “can undermine trust and threaten the integrity of our democratic institutions.”
Their public report cited cyber attacks, disinformation and corrupt funding as some of the causes of these types of intrusions.
Testifying before the parliamentary committee investigating China’s interference this week, Mr Trudeau’s national security adviser Jody Thomas said there had been “attempts” by Beijing to interfere in both elections and that the prime minister had been briefed on the intelligence services may be.
She added that the government is taking “concrete” steps to address the issue and that Canadians should be confident that the last two federal elections were “fair and legitimate.”
On Wednesday, a federal public opinion report came to a similar conclusion — that efforts to interfere in the 2021 federal election did not affect the outcome.