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Jordan Heath-Rawlings
By now, most people understand that foreign powers, such as China and Russia, attempt to influence elections in rival nations. We all know that by now, but that doesn’t mean. It’s not shocking to find out that it’s happening here and that the government in power has known about it for years and didn’t bother to inform the voters conservatives say if Canada can’t do anything about Chinese interference, In Canadian elections, it’ll just keep happening. Tori successfully passing a motion to expand a study into foreign electoral interference in light of a globe and mail report on what CSIS knew about Chinese interference in the 2021 and 2019 federal elections. The simple fact that we only learn of these attempts on our democracy through leaked intelligence documents and sources inside the agencies. A little troubling to say the least, but fortunately the government doesn’t seem too worried about it and doesn’t seem to think you should be either, and so that our very top public servants in an independent, nonpartisan way could ensure that the elect the integrity of our elections holds. They did that in 2019 for the very first time and reported that it helped. They did that again in 2020. The optics on this story are not great for the liberals, the media, their political opponents, former party advisors, and lots and lots of regular Canadians. All would like a public inquiry just to get to the bottom of this. So far though, it seems we won’t get one, which makes you. Why not? What might such an inquiry reveal and what else is out there in CIS documents or elsewhere that might detail exactly what was happening when and who knew about it? I am Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the big story. Robert Fife is the Globe and Males Ottawa bureau chief. He has been all over this story for the past couple of weeks.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Hey Bob. Oh, I was going to ask you to start with a broad answer of what we’re learning, but uh, this morning on Tuesday, you guys published another scoop. Can you talk to me a little bit about what we just learned about Chinese influence on perhaps, Justin Trudeau going as far back as before he was Prime Minister. Well, let’s start with, uh, after he became Prime Minister in October, 2015. Soon after that, he began to have, um, Private cash for access, uh, fundraisers at the homes of, uh, wealthy people, both, uh, the Prime Minister and some of his senior ministers like France Minister Bill Marano at the time. We came across and found out that at one, fundraiser at the home of a wealthy Toronto, Chinese Canadian business. In May, 2016 that a Chinese billionaire who was very close to the leadership of the Communist party of China had attended that fundraiser, even though he is not a Canadian citizen and could not have donated. And then a few months later, we’ve discovered that he gave, a million dollars in memory of Pierre Trudeau. $200,000 went to the Pierre Trudeau Elliot Trudeau Foundation, $50,000, the statue of the former Prime Minister and $750,000 the University of Montreal faculty of Law where Mr. Trudeau Senior had graduated from and later taught law. That caused quite a big stink because it looked very suspicious. On why a Chinese billionaire would be giving money to the Trudeau Foundation and to the faculty of law and memory of Mr. Trudeau Sr. And now we’ve discovered from a national security source that they picked up a conversation between the Chinese billionaire and a commercial attache. Chinese consulate here in Canada in 2014, in which they discussed, the chances of Mr. Trudeau potentially winning, the prime ministership and if so, that he should make a large donation to the Trudeau Foundation of a million dollars and that the Chinese government would reimburse him for it. So that’s the earliest, instance we’ve seen reported so far.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Here comes my broad question. You guys, as I mentioned, uh, have been reporting on this for a couple of weeks now. What do we know in totality about Chinese interference in Canadian politics and, and how are we coming to know this?
Robert Fife
Well, China has been involved in trying to, uh, influence and interfere in Canadian elections for some time. They do it not only here in Canada, but in the United States. In Australia and other parts of the world, particularly where they have, uh, large, um, mainland Chinese, uh, immigrant communities, they have proxies in these communities that they try to use to influence and people to vote a particular way or to elect. Uh, members of parliament, unwittingly or wittingly who may not be critical of China, they prefer people who not be critical of China. They try to influence business people. They try to influence, uh, politicians and obviously, and officials. It’s pretty widespread and it’s been going on for a considerable period of time. We have not known the extent of the interference operations until. You know, we’ve been able to see cease documents or abuse cease documents that have, uh, laid out in pretty good detail. The, the method that China uses, for example, in the 2021 election campaign, the cease documents explain methods that China would use to try to elect preferred candidates and defeat, uh, conservative candidates who they felt. Unfriendly to Beijing. And so that wouldn’t be involved. First of all, very sophisticated disinformation campaigns through, uh, social media such as WeChat or through, uh, friendly, uh, Chinese language media as well as cash transfers to supporters or candidates having, uh, friendly companies hire.
International students who are studying in Canada to work as paid volunteers, uh, for candidates that they would prefer to get elected, and also in some cases business people who don donated to campaigns, once they got, the tax receipt back from the government for their contribution, the political campaigns or the consulate would, would make up the, the difference for the, for the money that was paid. So it’s very detailed, it’s very sophisticated. We have a case where a Chinese officials SA is saying that, you know, they weren’t all that happy in 2021 with the liberals, but they regarded the liberals as the best alternative. to the other parties.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Oh.
Robert Fife
And, but they didn’t want them to win a minor, a majority government. They didn’t like the fact that in a minority parliament, people are always fighting all the time. And that means that they’re, if they’re fighting amongst themselves or do anything that would be, have negative consequences for China. Right. And we also know from the CI documents reviewed that they Chinese Consul General in Vancouver had boasted about defeating, uh, two conservative mps in the ’21 election. One of them was Kenny Chu, who had immigrated from Hong Kong and had been a very strong critic of Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong, uh, pro-democracy dissonance, and at table, the private members bill in parliament, that would’ve set up a foreign influence registry. And this kind of registry is already in place in Australia and in the United States and other countries. And what it means is that, you know, former politicians or lawyers or lobbyists or even members of the media who may be getting paid by. They’d have to register so that if somebody was on your program, as a former politician was on your program, and he seems to be saying sympathetic things to China, and you could look up and say, well, now I know why, because he’s being paid to do so.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
How unusual is it for, uh, ceases documents, particularly with this level of detail, um, to get out like this?
Robert Fife
I’m trying to understand sort of the, the context of this scoop and the information that keeps being revealed. Well, it’s unheard of, I mean, I’ve been covering politics for over 40 years. I’ve never seen any kind of, uh, leak of sensitive thesis documents like this. And I think it just goes, shows the depth of uneasiness within the, the Canadian Spy Service that they, that people would come forward with this information, or national security people would come forward with this kind of information because of concerns that the government is not taking the threat of Chinese interference in our democracy as seriously as people who are investigating it.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
What was going through your head as you first went through the documents? What was your initial reaction?
Robert Fife
You know, I, I, I wasn’t overly surprised in some ways, but, um, to see the actual documents that lay it out, it confirms some of my suspicions, but I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t sure of the depth of it.
And, and the documents clearly show that is a very, very serious problem, which is why you have people like, uh, Richard Fadden, the former director of cease and a former national Security advisor to Mr. Trudeau and Steven Harper, saying that we need a public inquiry. Former Chief Electoral Officer, John Pierre Kingsley has also said, we need a public inquiry into this. Quite a number of Canadians have come forward and said there’s, it’s absolutely necessary to have a public inquiry. Right now there’s a parliamentary, uh, committee that’s, uh, looking into this, and Trudeau said yesterday, well, that’s, that’s the way to go. But really it isn’t because these things get bogged down on partisan. The liberal, liberal MPs have been doing everything they can to, uh, deny requests from the opposition parties to call, uh, for example, prime Minister Trudeau’s chief of Staff, Katie Telford, and former ministers who were there at, who were in charge of public safety and foreign affairs in, in at 2021 election, for example.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Right.
Robert Fife
Even though this committee’s been looking. Uh, the Chinese interference, they started with the 2019 election campaign. They’ve asked for documents, and when the documents, uh, are shown to the committee, they’re just, they’re all, there’s nothing in them. They’re all blanked out, and officials won’t say anything because they’re, they’re obligated on the security and information act not to be able to reveal secrets.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Right.
Robert Fife
So this committee is not gonna find out anything. So the best way to deal with this is a public inquiry. Mr. Fadden said it should be held headed by a judge. A judge then could hold in-camera hearings when necessary, he could have access to all the secret unredacted documents, and he’d have cease, uh, subpoena powers to be able to call whoever he wanted. To testify to him. Some would obviously have to be hi handled, uh, behind doors, closed doors cuz it involves counterintelligence operations. Mm-hmm. , but other, other parts could be handled in the public. And the best way to deal with, um, interference any kind, whether it’s, uh, Chinese foreign interference or Russian interference or us, you know, right wing packs coming up and providing money to right wing.
Is through sunlight and transparency. If people know what is going on, they counter it.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
I wanna circle back to the political fighting over the potential of an inquiry, but first, let’s talk about how the government has handled this since the stories began to emerge. What was their initial reaction when, uh, the first report broke?
Robert Fife
Well, they, they’ve been saying all along here that there’s nothing to see here. They’ve always said, look, we’ve acknowledged that interference is a problem, but two independent reports from. Bureaucrats have said that the outcome of the elections in 2019 and 2021 have not been affected. Well, that is true. The liberals did win more seats than the. Uh, conservatives, but you know, we know from the cons general in the 2020 election that she believed she helped defeat two conservative mps and Aaron Oto, who was the conservative leader in the 2021 election, believes that the party lost up to nine seats. It wouldn’t matter if they lost one or 20.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Mm-hmm.
Robert Fife
We do not want any country, particularly a hostile adversary to be interfering in our democracy. period. So the Prime Minister has started, you know, saying that there’s nothing to see here. And then he said the outcome hasn’t been affected. And his latest defense is that if you raise any of these concerns, because it may involve Chinese Canadian members of parliament, you’re, you’re a racist.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
What needs to happen?
Robert Fife
In order for an inquiry to take place, prime Minister has to say, about a public pressure and announced that he’ll have a public inquiry. It’s just, it’s simple as that. It’s all in his hands. There’s nothing opposition parties can do to come together and push for this. Nope. It requires the government to appoint a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act. What have we learned as all this has gone on, about what top liberals knew about what was happening and when they knew it, we’re all finding out about this now, what did they know at the. Well, they knew, a lot about this because they get, security briefings from the thesis director and also a lot of these reports that, we viewed have been shared with, departments that are responsible for security. Also shared, by the way, with our five eyes allies, which is the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. And some of these documents are also shared with the French and German supply services because they too have concerned about Chinese interference operations. So the Prime Minister was aware of this, government was aware of this, and they’ve chose basically to ignore it. And conservatives say, well, they have reason to ignore it because they’re the ones who benefited from it , and they may have a point.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
What do they think should have been done?
Robert Fife
Well, I think we need to have a public inquiry, to begin with. Some people said we should have expelled some Chinese diplomats who were involved in these operations, even though that might have meant a tit for tat response. But you have to show China that you’re very serious and very concerned about these kind of interference activities. We need to set up. Public registry agent registry, so we know who’s trying to influence our Canadian politics. The criminal code needs to be changed so that there are charges for people who are involved in interference operations. And I’m not just talking about Chinese diplomats, I’m talking about their proxies in the, in the business and, uh, community associations who may be involved in these kind of activities. And CISOs has to have, uh, more powers to be able tell Canadians when there are, these kind of instances that are happening, which they they’re not allowed to right now.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
I swear I’m not trying to ask a leading question, but why wouldn’t we have an inquiry?
What is the case that the government is making against that?
Robert Fife
We just had, uh, a public inquiry for, uh, the convoy in Ottawa last year, and I think most Canadians, uh, including journalists that we had on this program, felt it was remarkably transparent and really good for democracy. I’m not in the, the, the Prime Minister’s brain, or, or do I know what, what they’re thinking in the Prime Minister’s office, but we can only say what he said, which is that he thinks that the parliamentary inquiry is good enough, which clearly is not. And he’s also saying that the, uh, national Security and Intelligence, uh, committee of Parliamentarians, which is a group of parliamentarians who, um, have access to secret documents are sworn to secrecy. Um, sh should be studying this as well and making recommendations. Um, this committee by the way, is not independent of the government. It reports the Prime Minister’s office and the Prime Minister Canon does redact information that is given to the public.
Robert Fife
Have we had any comment on this, from the Chinese Communist Party or, or the embassy or diplomats in Canada?
Yeah. They said we should stop writing these stories that were smearing China and that way they would never, ever do anything like that. They would never interfere in Canadian politics.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
I see from your point of view, you guys have continually brought up new information that’s coming to light. What do you still really want to know? What are your most pressing questions, you know, as it stands today?
Robert Fife
Well, I, I, I think it’s a simple, you know, we have seen some documents, but they’re not the full extent of what Ceases knows and is seen. Uh, we’re only seeing snapshot. And that’s why I do think that a public inquiry is necessary so that we can have somebody, uh, who’s highly respect. and would have access to all the secret documents. Paint a picture for us of how extensive this interference is.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Is it as extensive as where, what we think it is based on the limited number of, uh, documents we’ve seen?
Or is it, uh, much wider than that?
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Mm-hmm.
Robert Fife
I don’t have the answer to that, and that’s why I think Canadians would be well served if there was a public inquiry and it shouldn’t just look at. Chinese foreign interference. It should look at foreign interference, uh, from Russia as well, for example. They are, are involved in, uh, you know, bots and whatnot as we’ve seen in the United States, but they’ve done it here as well. Right. And, you know, uh, we’ve seen the influence of, uh, uh, American extremists in the right, on the right, involved in the trucker convoy. So that itself would be, uh, I think a worthwhile. Part of a, of an inquiry. If the government wants to do that, it should, it shouldn’t just focus on China. I think it should focus on a, on a, on the whole spectrum of foreign interference.
Robert Fife
Last question. What might come next? What are you gonna be watching for in the next couple of days? Uh, what do you expect and, uh, are you guys getting ready to, to publish more reports and sources? Well, the parliamentary, uh, committee is going to hear from. Mr. Tru is National Security Advisor, Jodi Thomas.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
Okay.
Robert Fife
As well as some, other senior officials and including CSIS officials. So we’re all gonna be looking forward to what, um, she has to say to the committee and ask for whether we have anything more.
Jordan Heath-Rawlings
I will just say stay tuned. Robert Fife Ottawa, bureau Chief for the Globe and Mail. That was the big story.
For more head to the big story podcast.ca, look us up on Twitter at the big story fpn. You can always ask us a question by emailing hello at the big story podcast.ca, or calling and leaving a voicemail at 4 16 9 3 5 5 9 3 5. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.
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