Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office intervened in 2019 to keep Han Dong off a House of Commons committee probing Canada’s relations with China, according to testimony from Trudeau’s most senior staff.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) briefed security-cleared Liberal officials during the 2019 election about “irregularities” related to Dong’s nomination as the party’s candidate in Don Valley North.
Those irregularities included CSIS intelligence suggesting Chinese diplomatic officials leaned on international students to support Dong’s nomination, as well as the busing of people to the nomination meeting coerced into supporting the now-independent MP.
Documents previously published by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s foreign interference inquiry suggest that CSIS was aware of those “irregularities,” first reported by Global News in 2023 and had briefed senior Liberal officials about the issue in 2019.
Dong resigned from the Liberal caucus on March 22, 2023, and now sits as an independent. He has denied any wrongdoing and is suing Global News’ parent company over its foreign interference coverage.
“I didn’t pay attention to busing international students because … I didn’t understand it as an irregularity,” Dong told the foreign interference inquiry earlier this year.
Dong’s campaign manager, Ted Lojko, testified that he didn’t know anything about the busload of students.
While Dong was allowed to remain sitting as a Liberal MP for years, the intelligence was of sufficient concern that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) nixed Dong’s candidacy to sit on the special committee on the Canada-People’s Republic of China relationship, according to Trudeau’s deputy chief of staff, Brian Clow.
“After the (2019) election, the Clerk briefed the Prime Minister, (Chief of Staff Katie) Telford, and (Jeremy) Broadhurst about the intelligence” related to Dong, documents released by the commission Tuesday read.
“However, there was very little information available.… At that point the level of Mr. Dong’s engagement with the (People’s Republic of China) was unclear.… Mr. Clow stated that, around December 2019, the Whip’s Office put Mr. Dong’s name forward for membership on the China-Canada Committee. Because of the concerns that officials had raised, PMO intervened and Mr. Dong was not appointed.”
The committee was established to examine “all aspects” of the Canada-China relationship, but has focused much of its time examining Beijing’s alleged interference in Canadian affairs and human rights violations by the communist government.
Trudeau had previously told the commission that the 2019 briefings did not have “sufficient or sufficiently credible information” to remove Dong as a Liberal MP, or as a candidate in the 2021 general election when he retained his GTA seat for the Liberals.
According to documents published by the inquiry on Tuesday, the PMO decided that Dong would not be “promoted” to cabinet or a parliamentary secretary role after the 2019 election. Dong previously told the commission that meeting with diplomats — including from other countries — was part of his job as an MP.
PMO officials also testified that they expected the intelligence agency to provide “updates” on any new information related to Dong’s relationships with PRC officials.
“Ms. Telford testified there were back-and-forth discussions with intelligence services at the time, including about the fact that it was not uncommon to have buses of supporters in nomination meetings,” one document reads.
“Ms. Telford and the Clerk sought to understand what were the concerns and the intelligence that they were based on.”
The evidence gets at an issue that has been repeatedly raised during the months-long probe into foreign interference in Canada – differences of opinion between intelligence agencies, who know intelligence-gathering but are not necessarily well-versed in politics, and political veterans who are not necessarily experts in intelligence.
Those debates between intelligence agencies and politicos are particularly pronounced in what has been called the “grey area” between normal, if aggressive, diplomatic behaviour versus interference operations.
It’s not unusual for foreign countries to collect information about influential political figures in Canada, for instance – and Canadian diplomats do the same thing in countries where they’re posted.
But the line between collecting information to inform policy and collecting information for leverage or blackmail is not always easy to spot.
“Ms. Telford explained that they often see debates play out between departments (such as Global Affairs Canada and CSIS) and other parts of the government about the difference between diplomatic activity and (foreign interference),” one document read.
“She gave the example of when they are presented with information in a security assessment that an individual is ‘vulnerable’ to a country or High Commission. The individual being vulnerable does not mean they have erred.… This is different from when they are told that an individual is covertly doing something inappropriate with a foreign official.”
As for Dong’s future with the federal Liberals, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told the commission Tuesday afternoon that he will wait for Hogue’s final report before making a recommendation to Trudeau.
Trudeau himself is scheduled to testify at the commission Wednesday, with Hogue’s final report expected by the end of the year.