The Conservatives are again calling for Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, to appear “immediately” before the Procedure and House Affairs Committee (PROC), in the wake of new revelations of allegations of interference by China during the 2021 federal elections.
“Each allegation in this story of election interference by the Chinese Communist Party is more shocking than the last,” St. Albert-Edmonton MP Michael Cooper said in a statement on Sunday.
He was responding to a Global News report, which appeared on Friday evening, which claimed, citing unnamed sources, that Liberal MP Han Dong, elected in Toronto’s Don Valley North, had “received help from the Chinese consulate in Toronto to become the 2019 Liberal candidate in the riding”.
PHOTO FROM HAN DONG’S FACEBOOK PAGE
Han Dong, Liberal MP for Don Valley North
Citing a “combination of documents” from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and sources, Global News claims that “the consulate allegedly sent two busloads of elderly Chinese-Canadians to the Don Valley North Liberal nominating meeting. , and that these old people knew who to vote for because Dong’s name was written on their arm.” Chinese students were also reportedly forced to vote for the candidate to “keep their visa”.
According to the outlet, reports were made by CSIS to the Liberal Party in September 2019, but Han Dong’s candidacy was still approved.
“It would be more than outrageous if the Prime Minister were informed that one of his Liberal candidates has been compromised by the Chinese Communist Party and that he flatly refuses to do the right thing,” Cooper continued, judging that it is “crucial to confidence in our democracy that we know what Justin Trudeau and his government knew, and when”.
The Prime Minister’s main collaborator, Chief of Staff Katie Telford, “must therefore appear before the Committee to tell us what she knows,” he concluded.
Prime Minister Trudeau’s office declined to comment on the situation on Sunday. The Privy Council Office has nevertheless indicated that a report by the group responsible for reporting incidents of foreign interference in the 2021 federal election has now been completed and has been sent to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Committee of Parliamentarians on the national security and intelligence. A public, unclassified version of the report is being finalized and will be available soon, but no specific timeline has yet been given.
Extensive investigation underway
Remember that the members of the House of Commons Procedure and Affairs Committee voted unanimously on Tuesday for a Conservative motion, which aims precisely to broaden the ongoing investigation into the issue of foreign interference during the 2019 federal election.
The motion was primarily intended to shed light on information reported last week by the daily The Globe and Mail that China used a sophisticated strategy during the 2021 election campaign to secure the re-election of a minority Liberal government led by Justin Trudeau and defeat conservative candidates deemed hostile to the Chinese communist regime.
According to the daily, the Chinese Communist Party “pressured its consulates to create strategies to leverage Chinese community members and associations for political purposes within Canadian society.”
In their motion, the Conservative MPs had already asked to summon Katie Telford. Justin Trudeau and the former Minister of Foreign Affairs would also have been summoned.
Bloc member Marie-Hélène Gaudreau then offered her support, but Ms.me Telford and Mr. Trudeau were eventually withdrawn, after a proposed amendment by Liberal Greg Fergus passed. The Conservatives’ request for documents from various departments regarding foreign interference was also deleted.
SATURDAY, The Press reported that China has mastered the art of insidiously interfering in elections in Canada, and that it will be almost impossible to counter any form of interference from Beijing in the country’s next federal election1according to a former Conservative MP from British Columbia.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for his part, assured earlier that Canadian voters were the only ones to determine the outcome of the 2021 election. “China, among others, is trying to interfere in our processes. democratic. […] We have been aware of this for years in Canada and around the world. And that is why our security and intelligence agencies work hard to counter this influence on a regular basis,” he argued last week.
With Joel-Denis Bellavance, The Press, and The Canadian Press