Among this week’s many disturbing revelations about the Trudeau government’s official indifference to Beijing’s interference operations during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, what might come as the biggest shock to most Canadians is just how easy it was for Chinese high school students to be bused in to vote for Beijing’s favoured candidate in a Liberal party nomination race in the Ontario riding of Don Valley North.
Canada’s electronic spying agency obtained “significant” intelligence related to the “distribution of funds” shortly after the 2021 elections, the interference inquiry heard April 4.
The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) is responsible for collecting signals intelligence (SIGINT) and generally cannot collect intelligence on Canadians or in Canada. Information presented to the inquiry suggests it was able to intercept or hack into foreign communications to retrieve information about elections interference.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dodged questions about MP Han Dong after an intelligence report presented at the foreign interference inquiry said Mr. Dong advised a Chinese official on the two Michaels’ detention in China.
“Foreign interference is a real challenge,” responded Mr. Trudeau when asked by reporters about the information and whether it changes his opinion of Mr. Dong’s fitness for caucus.
When pressed by reporters about not having answered the question, Mr. Trudeau said “obviously, these are ongoing conversations that need to be taken very seriously.”
“With CSIS, everything’s a big secret,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford once said about a 2022 briefing his government received about Chinese interference.
It seemed funny at the time, because of course Canada’s spy agency is secretive. But when you hear the way federal officials failed to pass on useful information of foreign election interference to political parties during the 2021 election campaign, you can see the problem.
Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole believes foreign interference may have led to his removal as party leader, according to documents tabled before the foreign interference inquiry.
In a document containing notes from an interview between O’Toole and lawyers acting for the Foreign Interference Commission earlier this year, O’Toole is quoted as saying he was suspicious about the motives of the person behind the petition that called for a leadership review following the 2021 election.
In July 2019, world-renowned biological researchers Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were quietly walked out of the Canadian government’s National Microbiology Lab (NML). The original allegation against them was that Qiu had authorised a shipment to China of some of the deadliest viruses on the planet, including Ebola and Nipah.
Qiu and Cheng, a married couple, subsequently lost their security clearances and were then fired by the NML in January 2021. At the time, both were subject to investigations by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service (CSIS). The NML said both had lost their positions for ‘breaches of policy’; it did not say what those breaches or policies had been.
Then the story seemed to go away—until now.
MP Han Dong has admitted that he was made aware that a bus had been organized by a private school to bring international students to vote in the Liberal Party nomination contest in 2019, in which he was a candidate. The admission was mentioned by counsel at the foreign interference inquiry in Ottawa on April 2.
Referring to a statement of evidence to be presented later, commission counsel Kate McGrann said Mr. Dong knew “that international students attending a private high school and living in a residence at Seneca College voted in the 2019 Don Valley North nomination.”
The opening day of the second round of public hearings of the Foreign Interference Commission – and the first to get at the meat of the issue – was about as heart-rending as might be imagined.
Foreign interference, as we have been learning, takes many forms: not just the election meddling that was the proximate cause of the inquiry, but propaganda and disinformation, spying and – the subject of Wednesday’s hearing – intimidation.
Lax membership criteria in major political parties, such as allowing international students and foreign nationals to join, leave Canada vulnerable to foreign interference and could potentially impact the selection of prime ministers, a recent study says.
“Foreign actors could also influence the selection process of party leadership, and hence the prime ministership, simply by purchasing party memberships that hand out ballots in leadership races without verifying the identities of new members,” said the study “Beyond General Elections“ published by Sage Journals on March 18.
A new poll indicates 51 per cent of Canadians support banning the social media app TikTok, after a U.S. bill aiming to do just that passed in the House of Representatives.
Canada has ordered its own national security review of TikTok, something the Liberal government revealed following passage of the U.S. bill earlier this month.
Canada’s China class will ensure that TikTok is not banned.
Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault says he doesn’t have the authority to investigate whether some donors were encouraged to provide campaign contributions in the 2021 election to candidates favoured by China – donations for which they allegedly received a tax credit from the federal government.
Lawyers for the public inquiry into foreign interference pressed Mr. Perrault Thursday on a report by The Globe and Mail in February, 2023 that outlined a funding scheme to help elect politicians who would be uncritical of China.
Interference inquiry must walk very fine line on secrecy, transparency: commissioner
OTTAWA – The head of an inquiry into foreign interference emphasized Wednesday that the need for secrecy about the sensitive subject has not hindered her work to date.
Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue cautioned, however, that the inquiry must walk a very fine line in balancing confidentiality and the desire for transparency.
Hogue’s remarks came as the commission began two weeks of hearings into foreign meddling allegations and how the federal government responded to them.
A parliamentary committee has agreed to question key witnesses about how two scientists studying deadly viruses at a special lab in Winnipeg were able to work closely and covertly with China.
Conservative MP Michael Chong brought forward a motion to the Canada-China committee Tuesday morning to study the recent release of federal documents related to the dismissal of two scientists — Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng — from the National Microbiology Lab.
The ChiComs had the run of the joint.
A military veteran who spent 20 years in uniform, Lieutenant Colonel Huajie Xu now lives on a quiet street in Winnipeg.
But he did not serve in Canada’s armed forces.
Instead, he was a member of China’s People’s Liberation Army, according to records obtained by Global News.
Before arriving in Canada in 2021, Xu worked at the military academy of the Chinese cyber warfare department that hacks Canadians and steals their secrets.
One of Canada’s intelligence watchdogs has finished its investigation into allegations of foreign electoral interference and has sent its findings to the prime minister and members of his cabinet.
It will still be a while before the public can read it, however — and it remains to be seen how much of the report will be redacted.
Just over a year ago, when the Liberal government was under constant fire over claims that China meddled in the 2019 and 2021 elections, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked the country’s two intelligence review bodies — the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) — to investigate the issue.
