The commission on foreign interference in Canadian elections, led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, will conclude its first series of public hearings today with testimony from Prime Minister Trudeau and members of his cabinet. The hearings will resume next fall.
Eighty percent of government documents received by the committee have the classification “Top Secret” or higher. What can be made public about all this without harming the security of the Canadian state? Everything will come down to this.
Judge Hogue pledged to “do everything possible to get to the bottom of this.” It is certain that revelations from witnesses or contained in documents could be embarrassing for the Liberal government and possibly for Trudeau himself.
- Listen to the Lester-Durocher meeting with Journal de Montréal blogger Normand Lester via QUB :
Trudeau’s Liberals: woh! engines
Thus, it was learned that a deliberately high threshold had been set by the government security committee to alert the public of interference. For what? Because such a warning could influence voters’ choices and seriously damage Canada’s relations with the country that interferes in our elections. The commission targets the activities of China, India and Russia and other countries during the last two federal elections.
A “top secret” Canadian Security Intelligence Service document prepared for Trudeau in February 2023 claimed that Beijing had “interfered in the 2019 and 2021 general elections.” Submitted to the committee on Monday, the CSIS memo was written in response to media articles, particularly those from Globe and Mail and the Global TV network, which described China’s campaign to “clandestinely and deceptively” interfere in the Canadian election.
The document says there were 34 CSIS briefings on foreign interference to Liberal government ministers and election integrity officials. Justin Trudeau had two information sessions, one in February 2021 and the other in October 2022. He therefore knew that the interference favored the Liberals to the detriment of the Conservatives.
Trudeau dared to accuse conservatives who complained about China of being sore losers. Erin O’Toole, leader of the Conservatives in the 2021 election, does not dispute the Liberal victory, but told the commission that he lost up to nine seats because of Chinese machinations.
- Listen to the Lester-Durocher meeting with Journal de Montréal blogger Normand Lester via QUB :
Don’t alarm the public
That didn’t stop Nathalie Drouin, Trudeau’s national security and intelligence advisor, from declaring that there was no concrete proof of China’s activities against the Conservative Party. This is why, she says, the government has not issued any warning “for fear of alarming the public”. Any truth is not good to tell if it can harm the PLC.
The Liberal Party had been alerted to China’s interference in the nomination of the pro-Beijing Liberal candidate in Ontario, Han Dong, who was elected in the 2019 election. CSIS knew that the Chinese consulate in Toronto had helped Dong to earn.
As a speaker from a human rights group noted before the commission, most of those who monitor foreign interference in Canada have been appointed by the Liberal Party and “the rules under which they operated aimed at concealing instead of denouncing and putting an end to the interference.