The inquiry into Chinese interference in Canadian elections opens its public investigation Tuesday, with testimony from Elections Canada officers who earlier downplayed the allegations, per Blacklock’s Reporter. Opposition parties pressed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government into creating the Commission on Foreign Interference to determine why multiple warnings of illegalities by Chinese agents were ignored.“Our goal is to uncover the truth,” Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue said January 29.Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault, the first to testify, earlier told MPs he saw no evidence of Chinese interference but acknowledged he didn’t look.“There may be offences that are committed that we find out after the fact and there may be investigations that are or are not underway that I would know about but with the information I have, I have no reason to believe the election was not a free and fair election,” Perrault told MPs in 2022.When asked by Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull if he has “any reason to believe that in either 2019 or 2021 the federal elections were disrupted or compromised by foreign interference,” Perrault replied, “I have no specific intelligence or evidence in that regard.”However, evidence has indeed been documented by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). A 2021 memo entitled Threats To The Canadian Federal Election states, “China sought to clandestinely and deceptively” influence Canada’s 2021 federal election.“Online and media activities aimed at discouraging Canadians particularly of Chinese heritage from supporting the Conservative Party,” said the memo. Elections Commissioner Carline Simard, also among the first witnesses scheduled to testify this week, in 2021 dismissed 116 separate complaints of misconduct by foreign agents and omitted all mention of China from her Annual Report to Parliament.“It remains too early to determine the outcome of the ongoing work and if the review will lead to formal measures,” wrote Commissioner Simard in a memo, reasoning while the Elections Act prohibited foreign interference it remained “a complex issue that may go beyond the elements regulated by the Act.”One Chinese spy, Zhao Wei, has already been expelled for attempting to harass Conservative MP Michael Chong. Records showed China also withdrew a quarter of staff assigned to its consulate in Toronto.Other witnesses scheduled to appear in the first week of hearings include former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, NDP MP Jenny Kwan and former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, who was among the first to raise the alarm over election irregularities.
The inquiry into Chinese interference in Canadian elections opens its public investigation Tuesday, with testimony from Elections Canada officers who earlier downplayed the allegations, per Blacklock’s Reporter. Opposition parties pressed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government into creating the Commission on Foreign Interference to determine why multiple warnings of illegalities by Chinese agents were ignored.“Our goal is to uncover the truth,” Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue said January 29.Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault, the first to testify, earlier told MPs he saw no evidence of Chinese interference but acknowledged he didn’t look.“There may be offences that are committed that we find out after the fact and there may be investigations that are or are not underway that I would know about but with the information I have, I have no reason to believe the election was not a free and fair election,” Perrault told MPs in 2022.When asked by Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull if he has “any reason to believe that in either 2019 or 2021 the federal elections were disrupted or compromised by foreign interference,” Perrault replied, “I have no specific intelligence or evidence in that regard.”However, evidence has indeed been documented by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). A 2021 memo entitled Threats To The Canadian Federal Election states, “China sought to clandestinely and deceptively” influence Canada’s 2021 federal election.“Online and media activities aimed at discouraging Canadians particularly of Chinese heritage from supporting the Conservative Party,” said the memo. Elections Commissioner Carline Simard, also among the first witnesses scheduled to testify this week, in 2021 dismissed 116 separate complaints of misconduct by foreign agents and omitted all mention of China from her Annual Report to Parliament.“It remains too early to determine the outcome of the ongoing work and if the review will lead to formal measures,” wrote Commissioner Simard in a memo, reasoning while the Elections Act prohibited foreign interference it remained “a complex issue that may go beyond the elements regulated by the Act.”One Chinese spy, Zhao Wei, has already been expelled for attempting to harass Conservative MP Michael Chong. Records showed China also withdrew a quarter of staff assigned to its consulate in Toronto.Other witnesses scheduled to appear in the first week of hearings include former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, NDP MP Jenny Kwan and former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, who was among the first to raise the alarm over election irregularities.
