PMO officials refute allegations against Han Dong at foreign interference inquiry

Canada's security services did not tell the Liberal Party to drop 2019 candi‐ date Han Dong over con‐ cerns about possible cam‐ paign irregularities and links to China, the Foreign Interference Commission heard Tuesday.

That testimony by Jeremy Broadhurst, the Liberals' na‐ tional campaign director for the 2019 federal election, ap‐ pears to contradict reporting by Global News in February 2023. That story, citing un‐ named sources, said national security officials told senior officials in the Prime Minis‐ ter's Office (PMO) that Dong "was part of a Chinese for‐ eign interference network" and that the party should "rescind Dong's candidacy."

Broadhurst said that secu‐ rity officials did brief the party about allegations re‐ lated to Dong, the 2019 can‐ didate in the Ontario riding of Don Valley North, but the briefing was only to inform the party that the allegations were out there.

"They weren't making a recommendation that the party should do anything," Broadhurst said Tuesday. "They weren't advising that the prime minister take any specific actions. They just wanted us to have the infor‐ mation that they had at that time."

Broadhurst also said "it would have been very, very surprising to" him if "intelli‐ gence officials had felt it was their place to advise a party on whether or not to drop candidates."

The Chinese government has been accused of at‐ tempting to influence the re‐ sults of the 2019 and 2021 federal elections and of med‐ dling in Canada's affairs.

The Foreign Interference Commission inquiry, led by Quebec judge Marie-Josée Hogue, is hearing testimony from more than 40 people, including community mem‐ bers, political party represen‐ tatives and federal election officials.

The commission is probing actions foreign states may have taken to in‐ terfere with those elections and the flow of information within the government about foreign interference efforts.

Broadhurst: no reason to rescind candidacy

Broadhurst, who has held multiple positions in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's in‐ ner circle, said he was alerted to allegations about the Don Valley North nomination pro‐ cess around Sept. 28, 2019. Broadhurst said he saw no information that was reliable or cogent enough to justify removing a candidate.

"I had asked the intelli‐ gence officials whether there was anything more that could be shared at this time and there was not," he testi‐ fied Tuesday.

"I felt we took every step we could at the party's side [and] I was satisfied from those answers that there was there was no alarming event that suddenly made sense in light of these intelligence re‐ ports."

He said the party also re‐ viewed the nomination pro‐ cess and "saw nothing that stood out as irregular."

"And having done a lot of these nominations, you do sometimes see irregularities, but at the end of the day there's a limit to what the party can do. We're not a forensic organization," he said.

Dong and the two Michaels

Last year, Dong announced he would sit as an Indepen‐ dent and work to clear his name after Global News pub‐ lished a seperate report al‐ leging he advised a senior Chinese diplomat in February 2021 that Beijing should hold off on freeing imprisoned Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

Dong filed a $15 million defamation lawsuit in April 2023 against Global News and its parent company Corus Entertainment. Dong told the commission last week that the lawsuit is in the discovery stage. He also said he has no news about his chances of returning to the Liberal fold.

WATCH: Former Liberal MP denies knowledge of

Chinese interference campaign

On Tuesday, Brian Clow, the prime minister's deputy chief of staff, addressed the allegations about Kovrig and Spavor. He said he learned of the accusations only after the media reports were pub‐ lished.

"We had a number of dis‐ cussions about how we could get the truth out about this document so that it could be known that Han Dong did not actually advocate for the de‐ lay of the release of the two Michaels," he said.

Clow said the PMO had classified information that would refute the claim and senior staff to the prime min‐ ister were discussing whether they could declassify it. Ultimately, Clow said, they decided they could not make it public at the time, despite his strong feeling that the al‐ legations were "wrong."

Katie Telford, Prime Minis‐ ter Trudeau's chief of staff, said the PMO has challenged intelligence given to it about MPs in the past.

The PMO, she told the in‐ quiry Tuesday, receives as‐ sessments related to the se‐ in curity clearances of MPs be‐ fore they're appointed to cabinet or parliamentary sec‐ retary roles.

"Flags will sometimes be raised and flags can be any number of things," she said, adding that the individuals in question rarely know they've been flagged.

Telford cited one example of CSIS raising a red flag about a "threat linked to an MP" that "didn't seem right." She said the PMO asked the intelligence service to go back and further substanti‐ ate its allegations.

"And to the credit of the officials involved, they went and they worked through the night and they came to us the next day and reversed their assessment because they had made a mistake in how they were looking at the information," she said.

"It taught us not to have blind faith in or first blush trust in the information that we would see, because we watched that reversal of the assessment happen and would have had a significant impact on this person's ca‐ reer."

"I cannot think of a time where we have not deferred ultimately to an assessment that is made, that hasn't been reversed, to any assess‐ ment given to us by officials." Trudeau not briefed Earlier in the day, the commission heard Trudeau was not briefed in 2021 about possible foreign inter‐ ference efforts targeting Lib‐ eral and Conservative candi‐ dates during the 2021 federal election.

Janice Charette, who sat on a five-person panel tasked with determining if Canada's election was at risk in 2021, said Tuesday that she and the director of CSIS decided to brief the Liberal Party di‐ rectly about foreign interfer‐ ence concerns during the 2021 election.

Charette said that briefing, given on Sept. 12, 2021, passed on classified in‐ formation to the Liberal Par‐ ty's representative to the Se‐ curity and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force.

Charette said Tuesday that the decision to brief the party was made by her and the CSIS director in an effort to "mitigate" possible efforts

by China to interfere in the election. She said Prime Min‐ ister Trudeau was not briefed by her or the Privy Council Office.

"I did not brief the prime minister on this, either dur‐ ing the election or after the election. And in fact I believe the first briefing of the prime minister took place not until 2023, by the Privy Council Of‐ fice," Charette told the com‐ mission.

Charette also said no oth‐ er branch of the public ser‐ vice briefed Trudeau on the 2021 issue, and she knew that because she was the point of contact for the prime minister.

"He may have had other briefings through the Liberal Party" that she didn't know about, she said.

Later Tuesday, Broadhurst said that after being briefed himself by his party's SITE representative, he decided that the allegations were suf‐ ficient to report them to the prime minister.

Liberal Party notified of foreign interference twice

The panel of five Charette sat on in 2021 is a group of se‐ nior bureaucrats tasked with monitoring threats to elec‐ tions and deciding whether to issue a public warning if they feel the electoral pro‐ cess is under threat from for‐ eign interference.

Nathalie Drouin, who was deputy minister of justice and deputy attorney general during the 2019 federal elec‐ tion and a panel member at that time, told a commission hearing Monday that foreign interference concerns about the riding nomination con‐ test in Don Valley North in 2019 were also conveyed di‐ rectly to the party during the 2019 federal election.

The 2019 concerns in‐ volved international students being bused to the riding of Don Valley North to vote in the Liberal nomination con‐ test, and financial allegations that were referred to the Commissioner of Canada Elections.

The Don Valley North rid‐ ing race normally would have fallen outside the panel's remit, but in this case it over‐ lapped with the 2019 federal election.

Drouin told the commis‐ sion Monday that concerns about Don Valley North were also forwarded to the com‐ missioner of Canada Elec‐ tions because they had a fi‐ nancial element to them.

Conservatives' 2021 con‐ cerns

Last week, Walied Soliman, the Conservative campaign co-chair for the 2021 elec‐ tion, told the commission that after that election, his party provided its docu‐ mented concerns to the SITE Task Force. Those concerns, related to possible efforts by China to interfere in the 2021 election, were reviewed by the panel of five.

Last week, former Conser‐ vative leader Erin O'Toole told the commission those concerns involved Kenny Chiu, then the Conservative MP for the B.C. riding of Steveston-Richmond East.

"The level and volume and tone of misinformation towards Mr. Chiu was hor‐ rendous," O'Toole said. "He was fearful for his own well being and that of his family and it was a personal attack of a racially motivated nature, suggesting he was a race traitor."

Watch: 'I thought I would be protected by my country,' former MP tells foreign interference in‐ quiry:

Charette, who was the Clerk of the Privy Council during the 2021 federal elec‐ tion in her role as a panel member, told the commis‐ sion Tuesday that she re‐ ceived a detailed briefing note in March of 2023 about the concerns raised by the Conservatives, the process followed to assess those con‐ cerns and how those efforts were communicated back to the Conservative Party.

Charette said none of the members of the panel of five in 2021 felt the Conservative Party's concerns raised to SITE suggested a threat Canada's ability to hold free and fair elections. She said she also did not inform Trudeau in 2021 about the concerns.

"I did not advise the prime minister at the time of this," Charette said Tuesday. "I did‐ n't think there was any infor‐ mation that required his ac‐ tion and he was generally aware of the situation in ter‐ ms of the capabilities here, so I didn't think there was anything new to bring to his attention."

The commission is hear‐ ing from the PMO's Katie Telford, Jeremy Broadhurst, Brian Clow and Patrick Travers today, before mem‐ bers of cabinet and Trudeau appear Wednesday.