(OTTAWA) David Salvo, who heads the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), says Beijing is trying to sow discord among Western countries, during his appearance before the parliamentary committee investigating allegations of interference China during the last two federal elections.
The nonprofit has been mapping and cataloging Russian and Chinese interference around the world since 2000, Salvo said.
He said the ASD has traced incidents in Canada, which also target expert groups and student associations to influence discourse and promote censorship.
Mr. Salvo argues that his organization seeks to show that the tools used by Beijing are usually non-partisan. Its database “shows hundreds of instances where these tools are used outside the context of an electoral democracy, simply to pit Canadians, Americans and Europeans against each other and to denigrate the whole process of living in a democratic society”.
The ASD develops strategies to defend against interference in democratic institutions.
Salvo suggests MPs put aside partisan politics and one-off incidents to focus on the tools and strategies used by authoritarian regimes and “educate ordinary voters on how they might be targeted at the local level” .
Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, who said he was the subject of a disinformation campaign on Chinese-language social media during the 2021 election, also appeared before the committee. The level of organization he witnessed leads him to believe that he was the target of a campaign to influence the election results.
He said he did not notice any foreign interference during the 2015 and 2019 campaigns.
Asked if he thinks the government should launch a public inquiry into foreign interference, Chiu said yes.
He also said he believed he and former Conservative MP Alice Wong were targeted by a member of the Chinese consulate in Vancouver, who was accused in the media of trying to tilt the 2021 election in favor of the Liberals. Mr. Chiu admitted that he had no proof of this assertion.
“The Conservative Party of Canada has been portrayed as unfriendly towards the regime in Beijing,” he said.