OTTAWA – Justin Trudeau has been bombarded with questions all week regarding China’s alleged interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections. opposition who try to understand. The Journal reviews what we know, and especially what we don’t know.
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What are we talking regarding ?
At least 11 candidates, both conservative and liberal, are said to have received funding from Beijing in the 2019 elections. harm politicians perceived as hostile to its interests. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) reportedly informed Justin Trudeau as early as January. This was revealed by the Global News channel on November 7 as the Prime Minister prepared to leave for Asia where he took part in a series of summits.
Nearly a month following this report, which continues to agitate the House of Commons, many questions remain unanswered:
√ Was there, yes or no, interference by China in the Canadian electoral process three years ago? How did she manifest? What was the impact?
√ Who are the eleven funded applicants? Have they been elected? Will they show up?
What does Trudeau know?
Prime Minister says he is briefed regularly on ‘issues that might concern our institutions and the integrity of our elections’, but has not received any information related to candidate funding in the 2019 election or 2021.
He assures that an independent group responsible for studying foreign interference in Canadian elections in 2019 and 2021 “can confirm that the integrity of the elections has not been understood”. “There was nothing that affected the elections,” he insists.
“Canada and its allies are regularly targeted by foreign states, such as China, including during elections,” he said. This is why he raised the issue of interference with Chinese President Xi Jing Ping at the G20 summit in Bali in mid-November.
The Commons committee investigating the case received reports produced for the Prime Minister in January, but they are completely redacted.
What does CSIS say?
In February 2021, in a rare public outing, CSIS Chief David Vigneault told the Center for International Governance Innovation: “Foreign states were exerting efforts once morest politicians, political parties and electoral processes to influence decisions made in Canada, influence public opinion, and ultimately undermine its democratic processes. »
Photo d’archives, PC
CSIS Director David Vigneault with Michelle Tessier, CSIS Deputy Director of Operations, and Marie-Hélène Chayer, Director General of the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Center
Mr. Vigneault then called on the government to “strengthen” its defenses once morest the escalation of “hostile” activities on the part of China. “Our electoral system has proven to be resilient, but we have to work hard to keep it that way,” he insisted.
What does the RCMP do?
“The RCMP can confirm that it is currently conducting investigations into interference activities by foreign actors,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Brenda Lucki wrote to parliamentarians on Tuesday.
Photo d’archives, GRC
Brenda Lucki, Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“In the context of the 2019 federal election, the RCMP did not conduct criminal investigations into activities targeting these elections given that there was no justification for such investigations at the time,” she explains without saying why. his services have since changed tack.
The commissioner points out that these national security investigations are among “the most sensitive that the RCMP is conducting at the moment” and that to say more would risk compromising them.
The problem, believes the curator Pierre Paul Hus, is that “we never end up having the outcome of these investigations”. “The least we might do is inform the population of the results,” he insists.
