Trudeau asked the national security committee, which he has often ignored in the past, to investigate election interference
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is asking a parliamentary committee, an independent review agency and a special rapporteur to investigate claims China influenced Canada’s elections unfairly.
When the word came that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was going to make an announcement about foreign interference in Canadian elections, speculation mounted about what new thing this would be.
The answer was that there wasn’t much new, except for an unnamed new person, in the unfamiliar new role of “special rapporteur,” who would be empowered to recommend what should be done next. Including whether there should be an inquiry.
Make no mistake, this was a scrambling stall tactic, a way to hold off the critics baying for a public inquiry into Beijing’s interference in Canada’s elections. Those critics include the NDP, Mr. Trudeau’s partners in a parliamentary alliance that keeps his minority government in power.
When I was initially contacted by the media last month concerning the Chinese government’s reported interference in our 2019 and 2021 general elections, I stated that a public inquiry was required to pursue the matter as fully as possible by an independent authority. It was important, I believed, for the full restoration of the trust and the confidence in our electoral system.
Nothing that has been publicly divulged since has caused me to reconsider my call for a public inquiry. To the contrary, I have only been further convinced that it is the only course of action that will satisfy Canadians in coming to terms with what CSIS documents described as a brazen invasion of our electoral system by Beijing. My reaction would be the same no matter which foreign entity was sowing doubt in our democracy: Our elections belong to us and to no one else, and the mere threat that this is not 100-per-cent the case demands significant action.
But none of the steps in Trudeau’s multipronged approach included a public inquiry, which opposition leaders had signalled earlier in the day was the only method of investigation they would support.
Instead, the decision on whether or not to call such an inquiry will be made by an independent, special rapporteur who will have a “wide mandate” to oversee the new probes and make recommendations on how Ottawa can better combat foreign interference and inform the public about such attempts.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is asking the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians — one of the country’s intelligence watchdogs — to launch a new investigation of foreign election interference in Canada, CBC News has confirmed.
The news was first reported by the Canadian Press.
Trudeau is expected to lay out more details during a news conference at 5:30 p.m. ET. CBC News will carry it live.
… In June 2021, when the House demanded documents related to the Winnipeg Lab and Chinese scientists escorted out, the Trudeau government not only refused to release the information, but they also went to court to stop its release.
… In Australia, the senior intelligence leader is by law required to make an annual public report to the country. Neither our signals intelligence agency, CSE, nor CSIS, ever make such public accountability reports.
Canada’s intelligence community clings to secrecy and is sometimes highly economical with the truth. Jody Thomas, the prime minister’s national security adviser, delivered a deeply humiliating performance before a Commons investigative committee last week, smugly declaring, “What I know, you cannot know.”
I’m glad of the CSIS leak informing us the ChiComs own the Liberal Party. Assuming it came from CSIS. I am not so sure it did.
The world is being reshaped on a scale not seen since WW II. Justin Trudeau, Canada’s China Class and the Liberal Party are likely considered security risks and irritants to be swept aside.
Canadians need transparency into allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections and society amid calls for a public inquiry, the leaders of the federal Conservative and New Democratic parties say.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh made the comments to reporters on Monday as the House of Commons resumes following a two-week hiatus, and as suspected Chinese foreign interference in Canada is expected to be a hot topic this week.
RCMP investigating violations of security law in connection to leaks of foreign interference allegations
The RCMP says it has launched an investigation into violations of national security information law in connection to media leaks of Chinese foreign interference allegations.
“The RCMP has initiated an investigation into violations of the Security of Information Act (SOIA) associated with recent media reports,” said a spokesperson for the federal police force in a statement to CTV News on Monday.
“This investigation is not focused on any one security agency. As the RCMP is investigating these incidents, there will be no further comment on this matter at this time,” said the RCMP’s Robin Percival.
One last favour from Lucki before her retirement starts.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may have hoped that this week’s independent review of China’s meddling in the last two Canadian federal elections would tamp down debate on the subject in Parliament. Instead, the report seemed to revitalize the opposition parties.
Here’s a short version of that report, which I wrote about when a redacted version was made public late Tuesday: There is evidence that China, Russia and Iran tried to subvert the 2019 and 2021 elections, but there is no evidence that their efforts “impacted” the results.
The LPC could be jailed, that would be a start.
It’s been a sticky couple of weeks for Canada’s natural governing party, as the Liberals like to call themselves. Anonymous sources from CSIS, Canada’s intelligence agency, leaked information to two major Canadian media outlets, The Globe and Mail and Global News. The reports say China interfered in Canada’s two most recent federal elections, and that CSIS alerted the government, but that despite warnings the Liberals – who won both elections with a minority government – did nothing.
The media’s attempts to expose alleged Chinese election interference has reached full throttle. Whether it continues will depend on three things: the on-going supply of leaks, how political parties react and, perhaps most crucially, how a just-released independent report on interference in the 2021 federal election is received.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he is not “ruling out” making a public inquiry into foreign interference a condition for continuing the governance deal with the federal Liberals, but says that is not a decision he is making just yet.
Singh told The Roy Green Show on Saturday that he plans to bring up the issue of foreign interference with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during their meetings on the confidence-and-supply agreement signed between the New Democrats and Liberals.
At the moment, there is no other topic in our nation more important than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s refusal to convene an unbiased public inquiry into the full extent of Chinese government meddling in Canada’s political process.
It’s not about whether the Chinese government or its surrogates “stole” the 2019 or 2021 elections on behalf of the Liberals. I would argue Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole were such ineffectual Conservative leaders, both elections were always going to go to the Liberals anyway.
Sen. Yuen Pau Woo’s claim that people of Chinese descent in Canada face “contemporary forms of exclusion and discrimination” is divisive and deflects from the Beijing regime’s true tactics, says a former ambassador.
“Senator say (sic) many Canadians hold stereotypical views of Chinese,” former Canadian ambassador to China David Mulroney wrote on Twitter on Feb. 16.
“The Senator is setting up a straw man argument that is dangerously divisive and that makes it harder to speak clearly about PRC [People’s Republic of China] tactics.”
