TORONTO – A team of top public officials said today that foreign attempts to interfere in the 2021 federal election did not affect the outcome. Thus, there would indeed have been foreign interference in Canadian federal elections. Whether they then had concrete effects in the results, it’s another matter.
They have not had, according to the team of senior public officials, i.e. the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol, set up in 2019 to monitor any threats to the Canadian election.
Instead, according to conservative voters, they have had it – as confirmed by a survey by the Angus Reid Institute, published today – that the 2021 elections were “stolen” by the Liberals thanks to foreign interference, specifically Chinese.
As well known, a series of articles by Global News in recent weeks have revealed the presence of Canadian intelligence documents informing the government of possible Chinese interference in federal elections, both in 2019 and 2021. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has resisted pressure from virtually everywhere to call a public inquiry into the matter. And, despite his recent clash with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 in Bali (where Jinping expressed disappointment that Trudeau had leaked their conversations to the media), he staunchly defended the Chinese, especially the Canadian ones, accusing of racism anyone who insinuates that they lend themselves to an activity of remotely guided political interference from the motherland: China.
However, new details emerge on the activity of the Chinese parliamentarian Han Dong (in the pic below, from his Twitter page – @handongontario), who is in the storm of Chinese interference and defended with a sword by Justin Trudeau. Dong is among eleven candidates who, according to Global News articles, China tried to help in the 2019 election, both financially and logistically, with elderly people being bussed to vote for him with his name written on their arms and Toronto-area Chinese international students “encouraged” to vote for him in order not to lose their visa. All allegations that Dong has firmly denied.
But – here are the new details – as reported by the Toronto Sun, earlier this month Dong sided with all the other members of Parliament to unanimously approve bill C-35, relating to assistance agreements for the infancy of the federal government with every Province and Territory and supported by all 323 MPs present. A moment later, 322 MPs voted unanimously to condemn China’s genocide “against Uyghurs and other Turkish Muslims” ,a motion sponsored by a Liberal MP, which had the support of all MPs, but one: Han Dong.
Dong himself was absent on a similar motion in October 2022 for which most of the Liberals voted. But when the Liberals voted against a motion condemning China, such as for Huawei in November 2020 or Winnipeg Lab in 2021, Dong voted.
Doubts therefore arise spontaneously. So much so that the team of the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol – mentioned at the beginning of this article – while reassuring the absence of concrete effects of interference in the last federal elections, recommends analyzing the relationship between the diaspora communities in Canada and their States of origin, given that security agencies, including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), have expressed concern about China’s attempts to interfere in the electoral process and since the CSIS itself has stated that China uses, for this purpose, many techniques, including threats to the Chinese community in Canada.
In the pic above, Justin Trudeau e Xi Jiping on the occasion of their “clash” at the Bali summit in recent months
