Prime Minister Justin Trudeau drew a parallel on Tuesday between the record of alleged Chinese interference in the election campaigns of federal candidates in 2019 and the questioning, in the United States, of the legitimacy of the last election.
Arriving at a cabinet meeting, Trudeau said his government “takes very seriously” reports reported by the Global network earlier this month. However, he in the same breath maintained that the reports made by an “independent committee” in terms of intelligence concluded that the integrity of the last two federal elections, in 2019 and 2021, “was not compromised”.
“The important thing is that we’re seeing a little bit, right now, of people playing games that we’ve seen south of the border, of saying ‘ah, the elections were not legitimate, we lost because of the influence of other countries”. That is extremely serious as allegations, ”he said.
According to the Global report which brought the issue of attempted foreign interference back to the fore, unnamed sources claimed that the Prime Minister was informed last January that China had notably financed at least 11 candidates in the elections. federal 2019.
As he did over the weekend in Djerba, Tunisia, Mr. Trudeau denied having received any such information. Asked if he was going to ask questions to his advisers about this report, he defended himself.
“We went to our intelligence services and said, ‘Look carefully at these reports. Get to the bottom of things, and more […] report what you will be able to say to the parliamentary committee which will be established on this.
On November 14, the Liberals backed a resolution introduced by the Conservatives to a House of Commons parliamentary committee to extend the investigation into foreign interference to “discuss media reports that the Chinese Communist Party has worked to influence the 2019 federal election.”
The Liberals say they supported the motion because they believe the Global report raises questions for officials to answer. The resolution calls for the government to provide all “relevant” briefing notes, memoranda and documents presented to the prime minister and cabinet members on the matter within a week.
“But I can tell you that according to all the information we have received, according to the committee [en matière de renseignement] that we established to ensure that the results of our elections [n’aient] not been affected by anything [pointent vers le constat que] our elections were fair,” concluded Mr. Trudeau on Tuesday at the end of the press scrum.
He mentioned that attempts at interference have been occurring for years by Chinese, but also Iranian and Russian initiatives.
In front of the elected members of the Commons committee trying to shed light on the allegations of interference by China in the 2019 election campaign, the Chief Electoral Officer, Stéphane Perrault, said in English that he was not “in position to comment on the accuracy of the content of recent news reports”.
He added that he had no knowledge of the details in this regard as part of his duties at Elections Canada.
Questioned in French by Bloc Québécois MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, he argued in the same language that “you have to be careful when you have a newspaper article, from the media”.
“I don’t want to question the journalistic work, but we don’t have an investigation. We do not know what happened in which constituency,” he insisted.
He also mentioned that if money has indeed been paid, it remains to be clarified whether it “went to candidates for campaigns or for personal purposes”.
Mr. Perrault further clarified that if specific allegations arise, he would not be the person responsible for investigating the matter. The file would rather fall into the lap of the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
With information from Marie-Danielle Smith