Ottawa
Canada has been rocked in recent weeks by leaks indicating the government knew about Chinese meddling in recent elections. A Feb. 17 report in the Globe and Mail newspaper suggests that Beijing was actively meddling in Canada’s democracy at every level: federal, provincial and municipal. The leaks also reveal that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has responded to reports of interference with obstruction, obfuscation and only minor concessions.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has been trying to highlight Chinese foreign interference to the prime minister’s office for many years, with little to show for it. Recent leaks have shed further light on this issue. National-security briefings were apparently delivered to Mr. Trudeau’s office, most recently in early 2022, claiming that China actively attempted to influence the 2019 federal election. Intelligence reports also revealed new information about Chinese interference in the 2021 election.
The mere potential of widespread interference should be reason enough for investigation, but the Liberal government has badly mishandled the response, with Mr. Trudeau engaging in messy denial and finger-pointing. He dodged questions about his knowledge of the foreign interference and claimed that it didn’t affect the outcome of the elections in a “significant way.” He also said that calls for thorough investigation stemmed from “anti-Asian racism” and that the real investigation should be of the security services that leaked the information.
Mr. Trudeau was narrowly re-elected in both 2019 and 2021—an outcome that Beijing explicitly preferred and allegedly promoted. Beijing used tactics such as Chinese-language social-media campaigns and pushed businesses to sponsor Chinese international students to canvass in support of Liberal candidates.
The Chinese Communist Party sees Canada’s Conservative Party as actively hostile because of its tougher stance on Beijing, support for a foreign-agent registry and other measures. Chinese efforts appear to have contributed to the re-election of Liberals in parliamentary ridings (districts) where they faced strong Conservative challenges, or reinforced the victory margins of Liberals allegedly beholden to Beijing. The former Chinese consul general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, is said to have openly claimed she helped support the defeat of two Vancouver-area Conservative parliamentarians, including one who championed a foreign agents registry. Eleven or more ridings in the Greater Toronto Area may have been targeted.
Allegations of China’s interference were apparently brought to the attention of another official agency beside the prime minister’s office: the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol, a panel of senior civil servants charged with ensuring the integrity of Canada’s elections process, specifically with foreign interference in mind. The committee concluded that there wasn’t an abnormal amount of foreign interference in federal elections.
While CSIS’s allegations have yet to be examined in court, and intelligence briefings are sometimes found to be incorrect, the allegations are consistent with numerous warnings about Canada’s vulnerability to Chinese interference in recent years. These warnings have come from intelligence sources and well-known accounts from Chinese-Canadian communities about the bullying of their members by representatives of Beijing and the Communist Party’s United Front.
Mr. Trudeau has resisted calls for a full and independent inquiry into the integrity of Canada’s democracy, instead resorting to a novel device: appointing a “special rapporteur” on March 15 to “help combat foreign interference and strengthen confidence in our federal electoral process and democratic institutions.” This decision was heavily criticized because the rapporteur, former Governor General David Johnston, is a friend of the Trudeau family and has close connections to China. As president of the University of Waterloo, he helped establish its Confucius Institute, and he has an honorary doctorate from Nanjing University. Mr. Johnston has visited China many times, and three of his daughters attended Chinese universities.
Liberal legislators have readily defended the prime minister. In March they spent weeks filibustering a parliamentary committee attempting to question Mr. Trudeau’s chief of staff about what she knew and when. She finally was permitted to appear before a different committee and will be called for testimony in the coming days.
The leaks have rocked provincial and municipal as well as federal politics. Two elected Chinese-Canadian legislators—Liberal Han Dong from the Trudeau caucus in Parliament, and Progressive Conservative Vincent Ke of Ontario’s Legislative Assembly—withdrew from their respective caucuses to sit as independents immediately after the leaks raised questions about their possible involvement with Chinese election interference. Both claim innocence. The mayor of Vancouver, Ken Sim, rejects charges that China secretly backed his election, following intelligence reports that China’s consul general had interfered in support of him.
Despite the prime minister’s bland reassurances, the latest federal budget serves as an admission of dire problems of foreign interference. On March 29, the federal government set aside 48.9 million Canadian dollars (about US$36 million) over three years to protect Canadians from harassment and intimidation by foreign actors. Another C$13.5 million was allotted over five years to establish a National Counter-Foreign Interference Office.
But elections may simply be the tip of the iceberg of China’s efforts to infiltrate Canadian society. Allegations of Chinese meddling abound, including in research institutions, universities, critical-minerals and energy producers, and infrastructure. The potential of such rot bodes ill for Canada’s domestic security and its standing as a leading democracy.
Canada is one of America’s closest allies, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. If a significant part of the leaked intelligence briefings turns out to be founded, Ottawa’s reaction reveals a country whose institutions and elites have been so compromised that they can’t protect Canada’s national interests or those of its democratic allies.
Mr. Crowley is managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute
A Canadian intelligence report suggests Beijing meddled in the 2019 and 2021 campaigns.
www.wsj.com
It's time for a change.....The right honourable Justin Trudeau must go.....
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