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.
As Americans’ awareness of threats from China increases — thanks to a spy balloon in our skies and a growing understanding of TikTok’s influence — the U.S. officials are ringing the alarm about another potential avenue for malign interference in the United States from Beijing: cranes.
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.
Support for Russia would boost the invading armies in Ukraine – and allow China to test weapons systems as it menaces Taiwan
As Ukraine faces down a Russian offensive – and lays the groundwork for an expected fightback of its own in spring – focus is once again turning to whether either side has the capability for a decisive breakthrough.
Despite mass mobilisation and a decision to pull increasingly elderly vehicles out of storage, Russia is still running low on the materiel it needs.
Analysts believe it is continuing to burn through an unsustainable number of artillery shells as it grinds forward around the devastated city of Bakhmut. Even supplies of Iranian kamikaze drones appear to have run short.
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.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) concluded a meeting on March 3 to advance negotiations on the global governance of pandemic responses. While the event flew under the radar in Canada, Republican politicians in the United States have taken a position against the treaty, expressing concern about its implications on their country’s sovereignty in policy-making.
The WHO published the “Zero Draft” on Feb. 1 as the basis of the negotiations to create a future international instrument to manage pandemics.
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.
