Last week, leaked top secret documents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service confirmed that China interfered in Canada's 2021 federal election. Beijing’s goal was to defeat Conservative politicians considered hostile to China and to secure the reelection of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. The Trudeau government, which has consistently minimized and concealed China’s electoral interference, now claims that it is taking these issues seriously.
Only a fool would believe that.
According to the leaked documents, Chinese diplomats and their proxies used Chinese Canadian organizations to launch disinformation campaigns against opponents in Vancouver and Toronto. Beijing also provided undeclared cash donations to preferred candidates and then had business owners further support those candidates by hiring international Chinese students to volunteer for them full-time.
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The tactics apparently worked. The Conservatives claim that Beijing’s meddling cost them approximately eight seats in 2021, including the surprise defeat of Kenny Chiu, one of Parliament’s most notable China critics. According to the leaked documents, after the 2021 election, China’s former consul-general in Vancouver boasted about defeating two Conservative MPs in her city. This news is particularly concerning considering that an entirely different set of documents show that Beijing executed an influence campaign during the 2019 federal election, too. Similar tactics were used to support 11 candidates — nine Liberals and two Conservatives.
Disturbingly, the Trudeau government has consistently hid this information from Canadian voters. In January 2022, Trudeau was briefed by the intelligence service about Beijing’s 2019 interference campaign. His government simply ignored the information and made no attempt to disclose it to the public, which only learned of the story months later, in November, through a bombshell report in the Canadian media. Trudeau subsequently dodged repeated questions about whether he knew of electoral interference in 2019 or 2021, and then denied that he had received any intelligence about China secretly funding candidates in either election.
He was lying. Earlier this month, it was reported that in 2017, top Canadian security officials drafted a detailed memo warning Trudeau that "a substantial body of evidence" showed that China was trying to influence Canadian officials, including "assisting Canadian candidates running for political offices." The memo was drafted at the request of Trudeau’s chief of staff, suggesting that his office was well aware of the problem. The newly leaked documents also show that the government was aware of Beijing’s 2021 interference campaigns weeks before Election Day. Reports of this interference were even shared with the United States, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, but the government provided no warning to the Canadian public and ignored Conservative warnings about election tampering. Audaciously, Trudeau then used the absence of public warnings as evidence of the election’s integrity.
If it weren’t for leaked documents and investigative journalists, Canadians would have no clue that their elections are being increasingly compromised by China. The Liberals have only acknowledged the problem when absolutely forced to. Their willingness to compromise Canada’s national security for partisan gain is appalling.