“Canada’s China Class”

There are far more loose ends than there are investigations.

In fact, on leaked information from Canadian Security Intelligence Service alleging Chinese money influenced two Canadian elections, the only official investigation is on the whistleblowers who exposed it.

In recent weeks, Canadian media have released a steady drip of reports, based on leaked intelligence, of detailed claims of Chinese meddling in the country’s last two federal elections in 2019 and 2021 – the latest Western nation to sound the alarm over concerns of foreign election 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 altered the outcomes of either general election, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is under pressure to launch a national public inquiry looking into the allegations, which have strained already challenging diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Justin Trudeau looked smug, arrogant and embattled on Friday, when his frustration from the past week bubbled up and landed on Brittany Hobson, the sixth reporter in line at his Winnipeg news conference.

Hobson had asked how Canadians could trust our elections hadn’t been influenced by foreign actors when the information supporting those claims was shrouded in secrecy, and wasn’t an uninformed public distrustful of the democratic process a threat to society?

“I’m pretty sure everything I’ve said over the past 20 minutes answered that question, but I will do it one more time, just for The Canadian Press,” the prime minister said with a smile.

The chances Canadians are ever going to be informed of serious interference in our federal elections by bad actors such as China, Russia and Iran — or domestic supporters acting on their behalf — are somewhere between slim and none and slim just left town.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday again resisted calling a public inquiry into foreign election interference in the wake of multiple media reports on China’s meddling in Canadian politics, saying there are already enough examinations of the matter under way.

Opposition parties teamed up Thursday to pass a parliamentary committee motion calling for an independent probe into foreign interference. Liberal MPs on the procedure and House affairs committee opposed the motion but were outvoted by the Conservatives, New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois. The motion is non-binding.

There were similarities to the departures of New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon — both stressed the toll of leadership, the time away from family and the human cost.

What they didn’t say was that they were both up against it politically. Polls suggested Ardern would lose the next election and the U.K.’s Supreme Court had ruled that Sturgeon’s Scottish Nationalist Party did not have the power to hold another independence vote unilaterally.

Could Justin Trudeau turn a coincidence into a trend?

Justin Trudeau wants Canadians to know they can have confidence in our democracy and institutions despite claims of election interference by China.

Trudeau turned down a call for public inquiry again Friday, the day after a Commons committee voted in favour of an inquiry.

“I would put the threat level at about eight out of 10. That’s mainly because the Chinese authorities are absolutely determined to achieve their goals, no matter what people think. I’m particularly concerned about their willingness to use almost any method to succeed.”

It was May 3, 2021, at a meeting of the House of Commons special committee on Canada-China relations, and Richard Fadden, former director of CSIS, had been asked by Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus how he would rate the threat posed by China to Canada’s economy, national security and defence.

Four overseas Chinese police stations reported to be functioning in various locations across Canada have now “ceased” operations, the RCMP says.

The RCMP’s deputy commissioner of federal policing Michael Duheme appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on March 2, where he was asked by Conservative MP Raquel Dancho about overseas Chinese police stations reported to be functioning in different locations in Canada.

The latest intelligence leaks about China’s influence operations in Canada are part of a trend that goes back at least three decades, though it has accelerated in recent years.

As early as the 1990s, a joint report by the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was leaked to the media, warning about Beijing’s operatives and criminal gangs becoming entrenched in various Canadian sectors, but the authorities dismissed those concerns. Decades later, drug operations and money laundering became the subject of a B.C. public inquiry.

Lucki picked the right time to skip.