CSIS told Trudeau China interfered in elections
Decisive language in spy agency’s 2023 briefing note a stark contrast to public hearings so far
Canada’s spy agency told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last year that they know China “clandestinely and deceptively” interfered in two of Canada’s federal elections — the most definitive statement the public inquiry on foreign interference has heard yet.
Since it began public hearings at the end of March, the inquiry has heard repeatedly that through the 2019 and 2021 campaigns, there were many who suspected China in particular was seeking to interfere to its advantage, but it was impossible to make a direct link.
The 2023 briefing note’s decisive language serves up a stark contrast and prompted several lawyers at the inquiry on Monday to demand the return of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and other witnesses for additional questioning.
CSIS briefed Trudeau after rounds of other intelligence materials on foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 campaigns were leaked to the media, creating an outcry over whether meddling in those campaigns was taken seriously enough.
“We know that the PRC clandestinely and deceptively interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 general elections,” the brief states about China. “In both cases, these (foreign interference) activities were pragmatic in nature and focused primarily on supporting those viewed to be either ‘pro-PRC’ or ‘neutral’ on issues of interest to the PRC government.”
The briefing note says the 2021 election featured campaigns intended to deter Canadians, especially those “of Chinese heritage,” from backing the Conservative party, then-leader Erin O’Toole, and B.C. Conservative candidate Kenny Chiu.
“The timing of these efforts to align with Conservative polling improvement; the similarities in language with articles published by PRC state media; and the partnership agreements between these Canada-based outlets and PRC entities; all suggest that these efforts were orchestrated or directed by the PRC,” the document states, before noting the difficulties of determining how such activities ultimately shaped the election result.
The note is still heavily redacted, and the inquiry has received multiple cautions about how to handle intelligence documents it receives and that are subsequently made public — as the CSIS note was in- troduced Monday, the commission heard it was dated well after the 2021 campaign, and new information may have come to light since then that could underpin its conclusions in a different way than past briefs.
Quebec Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who is overseeing the commission, did not order the recall of the witnesses but has offered lawyers a chance to put questions back to them in writing.
The commission is now in its final days of hearing publicly about foreign interference attempts in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections, what was known about those efforts at the time and how they were handled.
The panel of senior government officials tasked with overseeing foreign interference in the last two campaigns testified Monday. They reaffirmed that they did not believe that the foreign interference attempts of which they were aware warranted public notification.
They, as well as numerous other reports and security agencies who’ve assessed the impact of interference against the outcome of the last two campaigns, stress the overall integrity of both elections was never compromised.
But in a second document, dated 2022 and also released Monday, there is a summary of a redacted section that flags some of the stakes: “PRC officials could be emboldened in their electoral interference efforts by the 2021 defeat of former Richmond MP Kenny Chiu.”
It is not clear who the intended audience for that document was, nor who wrote it.
In the 2023 CSIS briefing, the agency delivered a similar message: more needs to be done to combat the problem.
“Until (foreign interference) is viewed as an existential threat to Canadian democracy and governments forcefully and actively respond, these threats will persist,” the note says