Stay out of our elections, Canada’s foreign affairs minister tells China

OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister MélanieJoly deliberately sought out her Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of G20 meetings in New Delhi this week to stress the Canadian government’s displeasure over foreign meddling in its elections.

Their 20-minute encounter, her office confirmed, was the first since Qin Gang became China’s foreign affairs minister in December and comes as domestic pressure is also building on the Liberal government for more transparency around the extent of China’s efforts to meddle in Canadian politics.

On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau again ducked calls for a public inquiry into the issue, despite a motion passed by opposition MPs for exactly that to happen in the wake of recent reports detailing how Chinese officials and their proxies allegedly attempted to influence the outcomes of Canada’s last two federal elections.

“I absolutely hear that Canadians want to be reassured that independent experts are looking at this issue. They want to make sure that all the right questions are being posed of our intelligence and security agencies in a rigorous way to make sure they’re doing everything possible,” Trudeau told reporters after an announcement in Winnipeg.

“And they want a level of public accountability from those officials to be talking about everything that needs to be done and everything that continues to be done.”

But, he suggested that mechanisms set up by the government to monitor for foreign interference — as well as the House of Commons committee exploring the issue and an existing committee of MPs and senators who have top secret clearance to review national security issues — are all avenues for the problem to be explored and exposed.

The opposition Conservatives said the prime minister’s response suggests he’s hiding something, and accused him of “arrogantly” rebuffing Thursday’s motion at the procedure and house affairs committee calling for the inquiry.

“Trudeau has claimed that he ‘respect(s) Parliament and the work done in committees,’” MP Michael Cooper said in a statement.

“But Trudeau is showing nothing but contempt for Parliament, and for our democracy, by stonewalling efforts to investigate foreign interference and by refusing to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves.”

NDP MP Peter Julian said he shared Canadians’ “disappointment, frustration and confusion at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resisting a public inquiry into the incredibly serious allegations of foreign interference in local campaigns during Canadian elections.”

Julian said “the best way to stop foreign governments from continuing to operate in the shadows of our elections is to shine a light into those shadows with a full, transparent and independent public inquiry. Why is Mr. Trudeau avoiding that?”

The Liberal government continues to believe the national security and intelligence joint Commons-Senate committee is best placed to study top-secret and classified security information to understand the policy and political issues raised by allegations of foreign interference.

Yet, according to two senior government officials, while no decision has been made, the government is weighing whether some additional outside independent assessment is required, short of a full-blown public inquiry like the Rouleau commission into the use of the Emergencies Act.

Some past judicial inquiries have heard secret intelligence information behind closed doors — such as the commissions into the detentions of Muslim-Canadians in Syrian and Egyptian prisons. There is also the civilian-led oversight body known as the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency created in 2019 with an expanded mandate to review the activities of CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment, which is the foreign electronic intelligence gathering agency.

A statement from Joly described her approach to her Chinese counterpart during their Thursday meeting as “direct, firm and unequivocal” as she said Canada wouldn’t tolerate “any form of foreign interference in our democracy and internal affairs by China.”

According to a report in the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua, Qin rejected the claims of any interference as groundless, and suggested the Canadian government needs to stop “rumours” from ruining diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Joly’s statement also noted Canada “will never accept” any breach by Chinese diplomats of the Vienna Convention, a reference to the terms that govern the conduct of diplomats in foreign countries.

That Joly raised that element in particular follows recent media reports that Chinese consulates in Toronto and Vancouver have allegedly engaged in the electoral process, both when candidates were being nominated and during the election campaigns.

A committee of parliamentarians heard this week that despite it being known China was seeking to exert some measure of influence over Canada’s political process, no diplomats have been expelled.

However, when it became known last year that China was operating secret police stations in Canada, Global Affairs — Joly’s department — did confirm China’s ambassador to Canada had been called in over the issue.

Parliamentarians heard Thursday that those stations have since been disrupted by the RCMP.

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