House of Commons committee votes to expand foreign election interference probe

Canadian MPs have voted to expand an ongoing probe into allegations of foreign interference attempts in Canada’s politics to include studying the most recent federal election in 2021.

The vote to expand the probe came days after a new report of Chinese attempts to meddle in Canada’s federal elections.

The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on Tuesday afternoon agreed to extend the committee indefinitely, and to have at least three more meetings scheduled for later this month.

Committee members unanimously agreed to invite Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc for another round of questioning.

The committee is also summoning Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, representatives from Elections Canada and national security agencies including the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

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Most of the witnesses the committee intends to hear from have already participated in its study of allegations of foreign interference in the 2019 election, which began in November.

The Globe and Mail reported on Friday that China deployed a “sophisticated strategy” in the 2021 election to defeat Conservative candidates and attempt to support the federal Liberals towards a minority government, citing national security memos.

That report followed months of exclusive reporting by Global News into allegations of attempted Chinese interference, starting with a Nov. 7, 2022, report that Canadian intelligence officials had warned Trudeau that China has allegedly been targeting Canada with a vast campaign of foreign interference, including through the funding of a clandestine network of at least 11 federal candidates running in the 2019 election, according to Global News sources.

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On Dec. 21, 2022, Global News reported that an unredacted 2020 national security document alleges that Beijing used an extensive network of community groups to conceal the flow of funds between Chinese officials and Canadian members of an election interference network, all in an effort to advance its own political agenda in the 2019 federal contest.

And on Feb. 8, 2023, Global News reported that national security officials drafted a warning for Trudeau and his office more than a year before the 2019 federal election, alleging that Chinese agents were “assisting Canadian candidates running for political offices,” according to a Privy Council Office document reviewed by Global News.

Following Global News’ first report, MPs agreed last year to probe the allegations of Chinese attempts to meddle in the 2019 federal elections.

The probe will now include the 2021 elections following Tuesday’s expansion.

Since November, the committee has already heard from a number of witnesses on the matter, including Joly, LeBlanc, David Mulroney, former Canadian ambassador to China, Elections Canada, and CSIS as well as RCMP officials.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that China is trying to interfere in Canadian democracy, “including our elections,” but said it remains clear Canadians were the ones who decided the outcome of the two recent federal elections.

But in an interview on The West Block on Sunday, Mendicino would not say if the independent panel tasked with reviewing the integrity of the 2019 and 2021 elections saw the documents from CSIS and other agencies revealed by the recent media reports.

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Under a federal protocol, there would be a public announcement if the panel of senior bureaucrats determined that an incident — or an accumulation of incidents — threatened Canada’s ability to have a free and fair election.

There was no such announcement concerning the 2021 or 2019 elections. Both times, the Liberals remained in government with minority mandates, while the Conservatives formed the official Opposition.

During Tuesday’s committee meeting, Conservative members accused Trudeau and the Liberals of not being transparent about the threats the elections faced.

“The prime minister has been anything but transparent,” MP Michael Cooper told the committee, adding Trudeau has used “carefully-crafted language” to obscure what may have occurred.

Later in the meeting, Cooper held up what he said were pages of a CSIS report left purposefully blank by government redactions, prompting committee chair Bardish Chagger to remind him about the rules forbidding props in House of Commons proceedings.

Liberals, meanwhile, called for a non-partisan approach moving forward.

Jennifer O’Connell, who serves as the parliamentary secretary to the minister of intergovernmental affairs, cautioned Conservative MPs about politicizing the issue, saying it could harm Canada’s democratic institutions.

“This is the same Trump-type tactics to question election results moving forward,” O’Connell said in response to Tories’ allegations that the government has kept the public in the dark about what election interference occurred.

— with files from Global News’ Irelyne Lavery and the Canadian Press