February 20, 2023
Canada’s spy agency has raised the alarm with Australia and its Five Eyes allies about an extraordinary Chinese government plot to interfere in the country’s 2021 federal election.
Chinese Communist Party operatives used secret cash donations, online misinformation and Chinese students paid to volunteer on political campaigns to sway the outcome, according to bombshell Canadian Security Intelligence Service reports obtained by The Globe and Mail.
The documents – which have reportedly been shared with Australia and Canada’s other allies – reveal the Chinese government successfully schemed for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party to be re-elected as a minority government.
It also targeted opposing Conservative candidates it feared would be too harsh on the Communist Party regime, including one MP who led the charge for Canada to implement a transparency register for foreign agents modelled on Australia’s world-first laws.
Responding to the explosive revelations, Mr Trudeau acknowledged China was “trying to interfere in our democracy”, but he said Canadians could have “total confidence” his election victory was not tainted by the interference efforts.
Instead, he pushed for an investigation into how the spy agency’s reports were leaked, prompting Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to accuse him of “covering up the interference of the authoritarian regime”.
According to the CSIS documents, published by The Globe and Mail, Chinese officials in Canada said Beijing wanted a minority government so that “the parties in parliament are fighting each other”.
They worried the Conservative Party was too critical of China, with one reportedly saying: “The Liberal Party of Canada is becoming the only party that the PRC can support.”
Tong Xiaoling, the consul-general in Vancouver before the 2021 election, “wanted the Liberal Party to win” and allegedly boasted about helping defeat two conservative MPs.
One of those was Kenny Chiu, who had unsuccessfully pushed to implement a register of foreign agents modelled on Australia’s clampdown.
Ms Tong, according to the spy agency’s reports, reportedly said his loss proved “their strategy and tactics were good, and contributed to achieving their goals while still adhering to the local political customers in a clever way”.
In response, Mr Trudeau said: “The fact that a Chinese diplomat would try to take credit for things that happened is not something that is unseen in diplomatic circles around the world.”
But Mr Chiu, who warned during the election that he was being targeted by a disinformation campaign on Chinese-language social media, said he felt vindicated by the revelations as he feared Canada was becoming an “open market” for foreign interference.
Mr Trudeau dodged questions about whether he would now establish a transparency scheme to crack down on foreign interference.
Ms Tong allegedly worked closely with consul Wang Jin to encourage Chinese-Canadian organisations to support Mr Trudeau’s party and vote against Conservative candidates.
The CSIS reports described Ms Wang as the intermediary between China’s United Front Work Department – a key organ of the Communist Party’s overseas influence operation – and local community leaders in Canada.
These organisations could then be used to interfere with the election “while obfuscating links to the People’s Republic of China”, with an unnamed Chinese official saying it was “easy to influence Chinese immigrants to agree with the PRC’s stance”.
The Conservative Party’s election campaign co-chair Walied Soliman said it was “truly unreal” that authorities ignored concerns raised during the election about “clear signs of tampering” in electorates with large numbers of Chinese-Canadians.
“We were met with shrugged shoulders and complete ambivalence,” he said.
In a statement, China’s Consulate-General in Vancouver rejected the allegations, saying China had “never interfered in any Canadian election or internal affairs in any way”.
Australian Liberal Senator James Paterson, the opposition spokesman for countering foreign interference, said the allegations were a reminder of a “serious and ever-present threat”.
“It would be naive to think Australia is immune. Democracies must be constantly on guard and ensure their policies are up to date and fit for purpose,” he said.
“We must also ensure our security agencies are well resourced and that the tough laws we have enacted to protect us are actually being enforced. Otherwise foreign intelligence services will think they can get away with it.”
