CSIS confirmed Red China interfered in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 elections to prevent Justin Trudeau’s opponents from taking power.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin was reelected in 2018, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rushed to the nearest microphone to express his worry that foreign actors might disrupt his nation’s future elections.
“We have been very much focused over the past years on strengthening our democratic institutions,” Trudeau said. “We need to make sure that they are kept up to date in holding off foreign meddling and interference.”
The prime minister’s supposed concern about the sanctity of “democratic institutions” isn’t just meaningless because of his use of government powers against Canadian truckers peacefully protesting his authoritarian covid-19 policies. They’re hollow because it’s clear neither Trudeau nor his government did much to protect Canada’s electoral system from foreign influence in the years that followed.
Chinese Election Interference
On Monday, Ottawa’s lead spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), confirmed that Communist China interfered in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections. These efforts “focused primarily on supporting those viewed to be either ‘pro-PRC’ or ‘neutral’ on issues of interest to the [Chinese] government,” a slide shown to Canadian officials reads, according to Reuters.
According to The Toronto Star, the briefing provided to the Foreign Interference Commission further revealed that, during the 2021 contest, the CCP specifically aimed “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.” Conservative candidates took a hardline approach to China during the 2021 campaign, often highlighting the CCP’s brutal treatment of Uyghurs and criticizing Huawei, a Chinese tech giant suspected of facilitating spyware for Beijing.
Chiu ultimately lost his 2021 election bid, while Trudeau’s Liberal Party won both the 2019 and 2021 elections.
“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 CSIS assessment reads, according to the Star.
O’Toole estimated China’s interference cost Conservatives “up to nine seats but added it had not changed the course of the election,” according to Reuters.
Reports of China’s election interference began surfacing early last year, when CSIS information detailing the CCP’s operations were leaked to The Globe and Mail. Trudeau initially rejected Conservatives’ call for an investigation into the allegations, at one point saying: “Canadians can be reassured that our election integrity held” in 2019 and 2021. The prime minister later acquiesced, appointing an investigator to look into the matter in March 2023.
During Monday’s briefing, CSIS called on Trudeau’s government to take more effective action to address future election interference attempts, with the agency noting there are “few legal or political consequences” for foreign actors infringing on Canada’s democratic process.