China interfered in 2019 and 2021 but didn’t overturn Canada’s election results: Hogue Commission
Commission has identified financial support and disinformation as tools of election interference
Ottawa’s Foreign Interference Commission has found China clandestinely interfered in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections, and while the overall integrity of both contests held, foreign interference from China and states including India is undermining the rights of Canadian voters “to have an electoral ecosystem free from coercion or covert influence.”
“The evidence allows me to conclude foreign interference likely impacted some votes in the 2019 and 2021 General Elections,” Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue found, adding “the acts of interference that occurred are a stain on our electoral process and impacted the process leading up to the actual vote.”
More broadly, Hogue’s report emphasized the risk that politicians could censor themselves in ways that impact Canada’s democracy and elections, due to hostile state interference.
... “There is a real risk of politicians modifying their positions or their messages as a result of foreign interference, and this risk will increase if we do not take sufficient protective measures to guard against it,” Hogue wrote.
The second phase of the Commission will look at what these measures could be.
... In a press conference Friday after the report’s release, Hogue said the Commission’s investigation continues and must probe more deeply into two mechanisms of election interference already confirmed: financial support for some candidates, and disinformation attacks against others.
... In one example, Hogue cited intelligence from the 2019 election of “at least two transfers of funds approximating $250,000 from PRC officials in Canada, possibly for foreign interference-related purposes,” into a clandestine network that included 11 candidates, including seven from the Liberal Party and four from the Conservative Party.
“Some of these individuals appeared willing to cooperate in foreign interference-related activity while others appeared to be unaware of such activity due to its clandestine nature,” Hogue wrote.
In perhaps the most prominent alleged case of Chinese interference detailed in her first report, Hogue found that Liberal MP Han Dong’s nomination in 2019 could well have been secured by covert support from Chinese international students who faced threats from Chinese officials. She noted that Dong denied any involvement in the alleged Chinese interference.
“Before the election intelligence reporting indicated that Chinese international students would have been bused in to support Han Dong, and that individuals associated with a known PRC proxy agent provided students with falsified documents to allow them to vote, despite not being residents of Don Valley North,” Hogue’s report says.
“After the election, some intelligence indicated that veiled threats were issued by the PRC Consulate to the students, implying that their student visas would be in jeopardy and that there could be consequences for their families living in the PRC if they did not support Mr. Dong.”
“Given that Don Valley North was considered a “safe” Liberal seat, if foreign interference did impact the nomination race, this would likely not have affected which party held the riding,” she concluded. “It would, however, have affected who was elected to Parliament. This is significant.”
“This incident makes clear the extent to which nomination contests can be gateways for foreign states who wish to interfere in our democratic process,” Hogue added, noting “this is undoubtedly an issue that will have to be carefully examined in the second phase.”
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was warned of potential irregularities involving the students and Chinese officials in Han Dong’s Don Valley North nomination and decided not to intervene before the October 2019 election, Hogue said there also is no indication that Trudeau and the Liberals examined the case any further after the October 2019 election.
“I asked Mr. Trudeau whether the issue was revisited after the election,” Hogue wrote. “The specifics of any follow-up are at this point unclear, and I am not certain what steps were taken.”
Hogue also found that British Columbia MP Kenny Chiu and former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole were attacked with Chinese disinformation in 2021 & Chiu may have lost his Vancouver-area riding due to attacks on WeChat.
“There is one riding where disinformation may have led to the election of one candidate over another,” Hogue said, “but I cannot say for sure.”
Regarding China’s attacks on the Conservative Party in 2021, Hogue pointed to an after-the-fact, February 2023 briefing from CSIS to the Prime Minister’s Office that “opined that PRC foreign interference activities in 2021 were ‘almost certainly’ motivated by a perception that the CPC was promoting an anti-PRC platform.”
According to Hogue’s report CSIS’s note said: “[redacted] the timing of these efforts to align with Conservative polling improvements; 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.”
Hogue said she found “no bad faith” on the part of Ottawa’s so-called SITE election monitoring task force, which did not make a public announcement on Chinese disinformation in 2021 or warn Chiu and O’Toole that they were under attack, but there were serious problems with communication and expectations, she said.
“While it is not obvious what government could or should have done during the election, it raises an important question about responses to online misinformation and disinformation (including during an election),” Hogue wrote. “This will likely be explored in the second phase of the proceedings.”
More to come
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