(Ottawa) As a committee begins a review of allegations of Chinese interference in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has again assured that he was never informed of the existence of such a system in the elections Canadian.
“I have never had any information on this from my intelligence services which keep me up to date on all these issues,” he insisted on his arrival at the cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.
This claim contradicts a report published by the Global News network.
“Canadian intelligence services have warned PM Trudeau that China secretly funded candidates for the 2019 election,” the network headlined two weeks ago, based on anonymous sources.
The opposition is urging the government to publicly disclose the identity of the federal candidates – there are at least 11, conservatives and liberals, according to Global News – who have benefited from Beijing’s scheme.
The Liberals argue that there is a forum for this kind of intelligence: the National Security Committee of Parliamentarians and intelligence. Its members, deputies and senators, have a “top secret” level security clearance.
This is what Justin Trudeau reiterated on Tuesday, unleashing a salvo on his political opponents. He accused them of aping Republican tactics in the United States by casting doubt on the integrity of elections in Canada.
“We are seeing a little bit, at the moment, people playing games that we have seen south of the border, saying: ‘ah, the elections were not legitimate, we lost because of the influence of other countries”, he attacked journalists at the microphone.
“That is an extremely serious allegation,” lamented the Prime Minister, arguing that “according to all the information we have received, the results of our elections were not affected by anything “.
Information conveyed in the Global News report allegedly prompted Justin Trudeau to hold Chinese President Xi Jinping to account – which, in turn, led to a heated exchange between the two men on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. .
At the instigation of the Conservative Party, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs begins a study of the case on Tuesday. It all begins with the testimony of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Stéphane Perrault.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) reportedly discovered that the Chinese consulate in Toronto was running a scheme to transfer funds clandestinely to a network of candidates and agents in Beijing who were employed by their campaign, d ‘after Global News.