Justin Trudeau’s government is taking the time to carefully assess what retaliatory measures Beijing could take if Canada decides to expel Chinese diplomats, the Prime Minister insisted on Friday.
“It is no small thing to expel diplomats. This is something that must be taken seriously,” said Mr. Trudeau, answering a few questions from the media at his party’s national convention in Ottawa.
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly had indicated the day before that a Chinese diplomat accused of having wanted to intimidate Conservative MP Michael Chong and his relatives could be declared persona non grata.
“I can assure you that the minister is looking in detail at the options and the justifications as well as thinking about the possible consequences,” added Mr. Trudeau on Friday. We are going to do the right thing and I have confidence in the minister. »
Mr Chong was targeted because he sponsored a motion in the Commons in 2021 condemning Beijing’s conduct towards Uyghurs, the report has revealed. Globe and Mail Start of the week.
The Conservatives are calling for the expulsion of the diplomat who is said to be the source of these attempts at intimidation.
Minister Joly told reporters on Thursday that she would decide “very soon” whether one or more Chinese diplomats will be sent home. She instructed her deputy minister to tell the Chinese ambassador, Cong Peiwu, that Canada would not tolerate any form of foreign interference.
China denies the allegations, with a spokesperson saying they are “unsubstantiated” and that Beijing’s diplomatic delegation to Canada is simply doing its job.
He claimed that reporting about Michael Chong is based on a “made up story” and a “political maneuver”.
Mr. Trudeau would not say on Friday whether other Canadian MPs have been targeted by threats from China. He avoided directly answering a question posed to him on this subject.
Instead, the Prime Minister took the opportunity to reiterate that he had instructed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that it must, in future, communicate “at the highest political level” any threat towards an elected official or his family.
He insisted that this information should be given, “regardless of the assessment of our security and intelligence experts” and whether the threat is “credible or not, serious or not”.
Mr. Trudeau maintains that he only learned of this matter involving Mr. Chong on Monday, when it was reported by the Globe and Mail.
“It is clear that this information never made it, at the time, to the political level in my office and did not go to me or even to the Minister of Public Security,” he said. .
Bill Blair, who was responsible for this ministry in 2021, assured not to have been informed.
“In hindsight, it would have been useful to have this information,” he told reporters. The person who succeeded him as Minister of Public Security, Marco Mendicino, considers that it is a “serious problem” that neither Mr. Blair nor Mr. Trudeau were made aware of the situation by CSIS.
Chong claimed Thursday that the prime minister’s national security adviser, Jody Thomas, told him that a CSIS report was shared at his predecessor’s office in June 2021 about threats against the MP’s family. According to what Mr. Chong indicated, the information was also shared with the Privy Council Office, the ministry which has, in its bosom, the office of the Prime Minister.
The Conservative MP clarified that Mr.me Thomas told him that neither the prime minister nor his chief of staff, Katie Telford, had been made aware.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Trudeau further stated that Ms.me Thomas told Mr. Chong that the information from CSIS had not made it to the Prime Minister’s Office.
With Mia Rabson and Dylan Robertson of The Canadian Press