In both elections, China achieved the desired result — the re-election of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with minority governments — but intelligence officials said there was no evidence that Beijing’s efforts had any impact on the result.
The document was prepared for the prime minister’s office after Canadian media reported last year on leaked intelligence documents alleging China was seeking to interfere in the election. These allegations are now at the center of a public inquiry in Ottawa.
Trudeau, who has long resisted pressure from opposition parties to launch a public inquiry, will testify Wednesday before Justice Marie-Josée Hogue of the Quebec Court of Appeal.
The investigation began in public hearings in January and will conclude in the fall. He will hear from dozens of witnesses, including election officials, members of diaspora groups, the country’s top spy and Trudeau’s closest advisers.
Intelligence officials have warned that reports presented as evidence in the investigation could contain information that is uncorroborated and based on a single source. This is a snapshot in time, they cautioned, and subsequent information may have since emerged to invalidate the results.
Hogue will release an interim report in May and a final report in December. Here’s what you need to know.
What was China doing?
A 2021 secret intelligence report presented as evidence identified China as the “most significant” actor of foreign interference, which acts in a “sophisticated, pervasive and persistent manner” to target politicians at all levels of the government.
China, according to the report, uses proxies, state entities, Chinese officials in Canada, its diaspora, Chinese-language media and “incentives or coercive means” to achieve its goal: ensuring the election of candidates “ perceived as favoring or at least not favoring the election of candidates.” actively oppose” Beijing’s interests.
Some targets are unaware of China’s interest in them, according to the report. Others “willingly cooperate.”
A 2021 top secret intelligence report found that several articles in Chinese-language media and on WeChat contained false statements about Conservative Party candidates before that year’s election, in order to dissuade Canadians from Chinese origin to vote for them.
While there is no “clear evidence” that the Chinese government led the campaign, the report says there are “indicators of potential coordination” between Chinese-language media in Canada and those in Chinese Communist Party.
Erin O’Toole, leader of the Conservative Party in that election, said he believed the party lost as many as nine seats because of the campaign. It was “nowhere near enough to change the election results,” he said, but it meant “democratic rights were being violated.”
The investigation also focused on a 2019 Liberal Party nomination contest for an electoral district outside Toronto. A 2020 intelligence report said Chinese government officials “likely manipulated” that competition, which was won by Han Dong. He was subsequently elected in that year’s federal race.
Dong testified that he sought support from Chinese international students studying at a private high school. They were bused to vote for him in the nomination race, but he said he didn’t know who chartered the bus.
In fact, he only remembers asking for their support after his wife reminded him shortly before his testimony. International students are not prohibited from voting in a Liberal Party nomination race as long as they live in that electoral district.
But an unclassified intelligence summary says there were indications that a known Chinese government proxy provided falsified documents to students who did not live in the district and that the Chinese consulate threatened to revoke their visas. student or punish their family members in China. if they didn’t vote for Dong.
The summary said some information was shared with intelligence officials before the election but was “not robustly substantiated,” while other information was revealed after the vote.
Dong left the Liberal caucus last year and sits as an independent.
China has long denied any interference in Canadian elections.
Did other actors also intervene?
Intelligence reports presented as evidence in the investigation named India as a country that “actively” engages in foreign interference here, working through Indian officials in Canada and seeking to leveraging its vast diaspora “to shape political outcomes in its favor.”
Unclassified intelligence summary says India focused on a small number of constituencies in 2021 elections and a proxy may have clandestinely provided illicit funds to pro-India candidates – possibly be without their knowledge.
India, intelligence services say, is working to suppress support for a separatist movement that seeks to create an independent Sikh state called Khalistan and seeks to oppose the re-election of candidates perceived to hold pro-Khalistani views .
The Indian High Commission in Canada did not respond to a request for comment, but the country’s foreign ministry has previously dismissed allegations that it sought to interfere in Canada’s internal affairs, calling them ” unfounded “.
Trudeau told Parliament in September that there were “credible allegations” that Indian government agents were behind the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia last year. India has denied the allegations.
Pakistan is also named in the documents, although it is identified as a “limited” actor. Its objectives are similar to those of India and China: clandestinely supporting candidates with positions favorable to their interests.
A top secret 2020 report indicated that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada’s spy agency, had taken a “threat reduction measure” to reduce attempts by the government of Pakistan to interfere in processes democratic institutions of Canada, which had a “tangible effect”.
The Pakistan High Commission in Canada did not respond to a request for comment.
Russia has a “robust” foreign interference capability, according to a July 2021 intelligence report presented as evidence in the investigation, but it did not intend to interfere to the extent that major political parties Canada’s federal government is largely united in its position toward Moscow. The Kremlin saw no advantage in supporting one party over the others.
Was the public alerted to alleged election interference?
No. In 2019, the federal government created a panel of senior officials and tasked it with informing candidates if they were targets of interference and alerting the public about threats to election integrity.
Committee members told the commission they made no such announcement because none of the information they reviewed met the notification threshold. They asserted that the overall voting results were not compromised.
Bureaucrats said that sometimes the information provided to them was based on a single, uncorroborated source or of limited reliability. It was also unclear, they said, whether misinformation or disinformation online was spreading organically or was linked to a foreign actor.
“The possibility that an agent did something is not enough,” testified François Daigle, deputy minister of Justice and committee member. “We would need reliable information that we could test to know that there is actually something nefarious going on here and we need to set the record straight.”
Nathalie Drouin, a former deputy justice minister who served on the committee, said intervention could do “more harm than good.”
“It could create confusion and also be perceived as interference in a democratic exercise,” testified Drouin, now Trudeau’s national security and intelligence advisor. “We also want to make sure that we are not seen as taking a position – a partisan position – in any debate. »
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