Front Burner - China's alleged attempts at election interference, explained

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

Late last week, the Globe and Mail broke an explosive story with allegations that China tried to influence the 2021 election here in Canada. Then, on Tuesday, a parliamentary committee that was already studying allegations of foreign meddling in the 2019 federal election decided to widen its scope. Elections Canada, the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and Liberal cabinet ministers were all summoned to testify to answer questions about these new allegations to determine what the government and national security agencies are doing to protect democracy in Canada. Today on Front Burner guest host Jodie Martinson is joined by Catherine Cullen, the host of CBC's political podcast, The House, and a senior reporter in our parliamentary bureau.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jodi Martinson, in for Jamie Poisson. Well, I mean, if there are no consequences for the agents of the Chinese state, then it will embolden them to do much more of it, obviously, you know, because they're able to fully get away with it.

That's former Canadian diplomat to China, Charles Burton. He's reacting to an explosive story from the Globe and Mail that broke late last week. It cited top secret CSIS documents detailing Beijing's sophisticated strategy to influence the 2021 election. On Tuesday, a parliamentary committee that was already studying allegations of foreign meddling in the 2019 election decided to widen its scope. Elections Canada, the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, and Liberal cabinet ministers were all summoned to testify to answer questions about these allegations and what the government and national security agencies are doing to protect democracy in Canada. To go through all this, I'm joined now by Catherine Cullen. She's the host of CBC's political podcast, The House, and a senior reporter in our Parliamentary Bureau.

Hi Catherine, it's so good to talk to you. Hi Jodi, thanks for having me on. Okay, let's start with the big headline here. So what exactly was revealed late last week? According to these documents obtained by the Globe and Mail, it's not just that Chinese officials were trying to influence Canada's elections, but that they had a preferred outcome and were learning more about specific tactics that they might have employed to try to do this. In one case, according to the Globe report, a Chinese diplomat in Vancouver actually bragged

about taking down a couple of conservative candidates. Now, there are plenty of questions to be asked about just how accurate that bragging was, And I'm sure we're going to get into that in a minute. But the idea that there was an attempt to interfere with the actual election outcome, I mean, we have to say that is a big deal, right? This is a key question about state sovereignty and another state trying to get in and meddle with who is in government, the balance of power in a country. it's a very serious allegation. And you talked about a preference that China had for the outcome. What was the ultimate goal from China? According to these secret and top secret documents that the Globe and Mail has viewed,

they say that the Chinese officials wanted to see not just a liberal government, but a liberal minority government. This is really interesting. The idea is that in a minority government, and as somebody who covers Parliament Hill, I can tell you there's some truth to this. There's a lot more squabbling, right? It's not as easy to get things done. You don't have all the power. You can't just say we want X, Y, or Z. So according to these reports, Beijing felt that a minority government would lean to more infighting. It would be harder for a Canadian government to pass measures that were in any way made life more difficult, essentially, for China. They wanted to see that kind of squabbling. They felt that of all the parties, the Liberals were, if not the most friendly, at least the least unfriendly to China. And, you know, there are a whole host of issues, right, that Canada and other democracies around the world are looking at when it comes to China.

Everything from China's treatment of its Uyghur population, which some critics, some parliaments around the world, including Canada's, have said is essentially a genocide that is going on right now. Canada's lower house of parliament has voted in favor of labeling China's treatment of Uyghur Muslims as genocide. Monday's vote passed 266 to 0, although Trudeau and his cabinet abstained. You talk about what is happening in Taiwan, what is happening in Hong Kong and aggressive moves that China is taking and might continue to take in order to sort of

get its hands more around those particular locations. All of that is stuff that China would like Canada to essentially butt out of and keep quiet about. The suggestion is if we're squabbling amongst ourselves, there'll be less of that. And it's so interesting to hear that because I don't really think of Trudeau's time as prime minister as a particularly the time machine, Jodi. Think back to the early days of Justin Trudeau as liberal leader. He did actually try to pursue a free trade agreement with China. You might remember that he went over to China to hold meetings. The idea was that what was going to come out of this was at least the beginning building blocks of a free trade agreement with China.

Moving forward on a trade agreement with China is a big thing, not a small thing. Canadians understand how important it is to get it right. And we are ensuring that in the progress we made today in discussions, we're going to be able to continue to keep moving forward in a responsible way. When I was doing some research for this, one thing that really kind of blew my mind, it speaks to how much our relationship with China has changed. In 2018, it was actually the year of Canada-China tourism, a whole year devoted to the exchange of peoples between the two countries. Ni hao.

Bonjour. Je suis Baris Chegar, ministre de la petite entreprise et du tourisme du Canada. For the government of Canada, we are very much looking forward to all of the good things coming in 2018 during the Canada-China year of tourism.

Of course, we know a lot has changed since then. The thing I think that most Canadians will think of, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, that's something that really, you know, set that relationship going in the wrong direction. Vancouver Airport in December of 2018, when Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was detained and placed in a B.C. detention center after an extradition request from the U.S.

The two Michaels were imprisoned in China. Canadian officials were given limited access to them. This has our attention at the very highest levels of our government. Spavor was convicted of spying and sentenced to 11 years plus deportation. Canada condemns in the strongest possible terms Mr. Spavor's unjust conviction after more than two and a half years of arbitrary detention. Today, it all came to a dramatic end, with Meng headed home to China and the two Michaels en route to Canada. Many Canadians widely said that was essentially hostage diplomacy, right?

China taking a couple of our citizens into detention in order to get what it wanted, which was the release of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. So things really went sour there. We saw all kinds of trade disputes that came out of that. And of course, there have been a multitude of other issues, including election interference. It is not a warm and cozy relationship, but it did start out on a better foot, I would say, than China has found itself in recent years with the Conservative Party. And of course, recently, a balloon in the air.

Well, and that's, you know, that's one of those examples that, like, we all can't help but pay attention to because it just seems so wild. But, like, any number of things, yeah, election interference, concern around what China is doing with our economy, there are a lot of things that has made this relationship a difficult one. OK, so we have these documents that The Globe has seen, and they lay out that China had a plan to interfere, allegedly, in Canada's election. So we did get a liberal minority government in 2021. But do we know if China actually played a significant role in making that happen? Well, I will say that the prime minister has said this repeatedly. He has been very clear about it. And other officials have said the same, that foreign interference did not affect the outcome of either the 2019 or the 2021 election. And we know that

the prime minister, the government, in fact, set up a nonpartisan committee that was informed by various intelligence sources in both 2019 and 2021 and said, you know, the integrity of these elections is it is secure. Canadians can be confident in it. But I think that's also part of the reason that this Globe report has raised so many questions, because there are specific allegations here. For instance, the Vancouver Consul General, according to the documents seen by the Globe, sort of crowing that she helped take down a couple of conservative candidates. And the conservatives have been more aggressive on China, particularly in 2021, Aaron O'Toole had a long track record of being somebody who wanted to get tough with China. I'm very concerned. Canada's entanglement with communist China under Justin

Trudeau is worse than anyone could have imagined. If you look at his election platform, he name-checks China 31 times. He really did want his party to take on a tougher stance. And we know that in the wake of that election, one candidate in particular, Conservative MP Kenny Chu, he lost, and he said he is quite convinced that China really did play a role in his loss. There have been a significant amount of disinformation being spread.

And unfortunately, some of my constituents, they rely solely on information being provided or circulated in the WeChat. Some of these Chinese social media that is controlled by not the Canadian government, not even... He says on Chinese language social media accounts, there was a lot of work being done to essentially convince folks

that he was, to some extent, I guess, out to get Chinese Canadians, that this plan to put in place a foreign agent registry, there was this misinformation going around to suggest that it was really just a way to track Chinese Canadians and basically trying to convince Chinese Canadians that it was not in their interest to support the Conservative Party of Canada. So how do you square those claims, that one in particular, with what the government has been saying about the fact that the integrity of the elections can be assured?

I think that's part of the reason that this is causing so many raised eyebrows. More than that, really an uproar. Kenny Chu, his riding is in, you know, Richmond, BC, just outside of Vancouver. So how can Prime Minister Trudeau be so sure that that didn't have a real impact on how the votes went in that particular riding? What he says is he points to these non-partisan panels that were set up both in advance of the 2019 and the 2021 election. They are informed by the work of groups like CSIS, Canada's spy agency. CSE is essentially Canada's electronic spy agency. The RCMP, that they were in touch with all of the campaigns,

that everything was being monitored, and that the information they have is that the integrity of our elections held. This doesn't mean there hasn't been interference. Of course, we have talked openly for many, many years about the real threat of interference and attempts by interference that countries like China continually do within our democracies. And we have continually increased not just that tool, but other tools that our security agencies have to follow up on that. But I hear what you're saying. It feels like there's a real disconnect. It is complicated, right? If some people's opinions were swayed, when do we start saying that this was a compromise of the election if one particular

writing, although we know from the various reports that we've seen is the idea this is more than just one, right? Aaron O'Toole, conservative leader at the time, came out and said after the election that he believed that about eight or nine ridings, the results were actually affected because of this campaign to bring down the conservatives essentially on issues related to China. We won the popular vote. We almost won the election. We lost probably about eight or nine seats to foreign interference from China. I think, you know, that would have probably given me a little more sturdy of a leg to stand on. Well, and to some extent, we can appreciate that that stuff is secret or top secret. It's not made entirely public. But I think these are the questions that a lot of people are asking right now, particularly the opposition political parties saying, you know, show us the details. Help us understand how you can keep claiming this in the face of these new allegations and new evidence. Yeah. OK. And let's just spend a minute talking about how this allegedly worked and what was going on.

So it has to do with political donations, right? It's multifaceted. So some of it was just about influencing public opinion, right? Advice that we understand that Beijing was giving out to its diplomats here saying, whatever you can do to leverage the opinion of Chinese Canadians and convince them that the Conservative Party just does not represent their interests. That's part of it. But the political donation part, that is remarkable too. According to these documents viewed by The Globe, there were undeclared cash donations to support preferred liberal candidates in the election. The documents also say that Beijing directed Chinese students studying in Canada to work as campaign volunteers. And one of the things that really is striking here and something that I think we're going to hear more about, certainly more questions about, I don't know if we're going to get more answers, is that according to the documents, the Chinese government encouraged sympathetic donors to provide campaign contributions to candidates favored by China, donations for which they would receive a tax credit.

And then according to the CSIS report, the political campaigns quietly and illegally returned parts of the contribution. And this is where we sort of have the alarm bells going off because it doesn't just suggest that, you know, members of the public or Chinese diplomats were engaged in something inappropriate. But according to these allegations, the political campaigns, or at least someone inside of them, was funneling money back to people and breaking the law. And this is where we have to say, well, if CSIS was aware of it, what the heck happened? Yes, yes. This is where the real accountability hits the road.

We really need to know who's doing what in response to those sort of allegations. And do we know who received political donations? We don't have the details of all of this. And we also don't really know what's happening in terms of an investigation from the point of view of electoral law. It's the Commissioner of Canadian Elections that would look into this, but that is not an office that lets us know what's happening, right? Those investigations happen behind closed doors and we only know if there is a result. So I really think watch this space. It is a really incendiary allegation that would bring political parties into this, not just forces trying to influence them. So I think that's going to be an important

part of this discussion to see what comes of that part of this story. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. And what about CSIS? How has the Canadian Security Intelligence Service responded to this leak from inside? Well, not a lot of specifics. And once again, this is where it gets tricky, Jodi, right? Like we, I think, can be to some extent sympathetic to the idea that if what you're dealing with

is a lot of really sensitive security information that you're not going to run around blabbing about it. Some of that stuff kind of has to be kept, you know, inside the coat. But then something like this comes up and people say, well, listen, you had documents that all this stuff is going on. Why are we only finding out about it now? Of course, we asked CSIS for a comment. They won't get into the specifics. They did say, though, in a statement, and I want to read part of it to you because it's interesting. Canadians should be aware of covert and deceptive activities conducted by foreign states, including the People's Republic of China and its ruling Chinese Communist Party with the intent to influence the results of democratic elections at all levels of government in Canada.

So a few things there. It is an acknowledgement that China is trying to interfere with elections and that Canadians should be aware of it. I would also draw your attention to all levels of government in Canada, right? Suggesting that this isn't just a federal issue. that this isn't just a federal issue. CSIS goes on in very little detail to talk about the fact that it takes steps to address all of this. It reviews threats, it says, it advises the government, it takes steps to reduce the threats.

But in terms of specifics, you know, like that diplomat from Vancouver crowing that she helped take down a couple of conservative candidates. If you knew about it, and the information seems to come from you, she says, what did you do about it? We don't have any answers to those questions. Right. And we do remember from those elections that there were kind of slightly under the radar campaigns from Elections Canada to talk to Canadians about foreign interference. But I guess the real question is, what more was done, if anything, behind the scenes? And we'll get into that.

So this, of course, is not the first time that China's been accused of trying to interfere in Canadian elections. And that all kind of came to a head in November when there was this really testy moment between Trudeau and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20. In Canada, we believe in free and open and frank dialogue, and we will continue to have, we will continue to look to work constructively together, but there will be things we will

disagree on. Let's create the conditions first. And it seemed to be connected to the accusations of attempted Chinese election interference in 2019. Take us back to that time. What was that all about? Yeah, that particular handshake was, as the kids say, a bit cringe. It was this moment that crystallized the challenge of what is going on between Canada and China. So let's cast our minds back to November. Global News had just put out a report suggesting that there was a clandestine network funded by China that was trying to influence candidates in the 2019 election. This report came out just as Justin Trudeau took off on an international trip. And so

the prime minister was facing a lot of questions about what had happened, what he was doing about it. And he went into this meeting, often happen at international summits. He goes into this meeting with Xi Jinping, comes out of the meeting. Afterwards, it's reported by the Canadian media that's on the trip that one of the issues that was raised was Canada brought up the question of not interfering in Canadian elections, the integrity of the electoral system, just some broad general words about it. Obviously, that didn't sit well with the Chinese, because when President Xi and Justin Trudeau run into each other later at the summit, a Canadian camera captures this awkward exchange where Xi is saying, why did this get leaked to the media?

That's not how the conversation went. Trudeau says, well, you know, we believe in open and frank dialogue. There's a bit of like looking aside. Everybody looks a little bit uncomfortable. We all flash back to like awkward conversations in high school or something. They shake hands. They part ways. But the fundamental pressure on that moment that received so much international attention, it did have to do with this question of whether or not China was messing with Canada's elections and how China felt about that allegation. So it is, we can see it's a plot line that has been, you know, just growing and growing in Canadian politics over the course of certainly the last few months. So since the story broke, this last set of allegations about the 2021 election, have we heard anything from China in response?

We have gotten a statement from Vancouver's Chinese consulate. It says today a Canadian media repeated the so-called China's interference in Canadian federal elections, smearing and discrediting China. The consulate general expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to it. It says that China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in international affairs of other countries and has never interfered in any Canadian election or internal affairs in any way. I might take this moment, Jody, to note that Canada is not the only country where there have been allegations that

China has interfered in their elections. Look at, you know, Australia, there were allegations in the UK. So Canada is certainly not unique in this regard, though China rejects the allegations. Okay, so Catherine, let's get into your bread and butter, which is the political reactions and the fallout, all the implications of this. So Trudeau was grilled about this again on Wednesday. And what did he say in response? He is really making a point of saying that these allegations are serious. Canadians can and should continue to have faith in their institutions around this. And they need to know that everyone is taking this seriously.

So, you know, we said earlier, the prime minister, government officials saying, listen, the integrity of our elections is assured. But he was really taking pains on Wednesday to say, that doesn't mean I'm saying this isn't a big deal. He called it an extraordinarily serious issue. And he said it's actually something everyone should be worried about, saying that election integrity is something all democracies, according to him, are struggling with. And he didn't just name Czech, China. He talked about Russia as well. I think everyone should be worried about the fact that countries like China and Russia and others are continually trying to spread misinformation and disinformation, trying to interfere in our elections unsuccessfully. His argument is that what these countries are aiming to do is so chaos in people's confidence in democracies.

Foreign governments and foreign actors are trying to undermine people's confidence in democracy itself. He said some folks out there, and he didn't specifically say who, are playing political games and undermining people's confidence in our institutions by leaning into partisan instincts, using these reports for partisan ends. Amplifying and giving reason, giving partisan reasons to mistrust the outcome of an election, mistrust the experts at Elections Canada and in our security services and our top public servants who are saying that the election integrity held. who are saying that the election integrity held, that's something that we've seen from elsewhere is not a good path to go down for society or for democracy. It's pretty clear for anybody who watches politics that he is pointing the finger at the Conservative Party of Canada. It's a pretty serious allegation that he's making there, right? Saying that the Conservatives are actually trying to undermine

people's confidence in democracy to achieve political gain here. Although I would point out that the Conservatives have made some pretty serious and comparable allegations about the Prime Minister and how he's handling this issue. So it's getting pretty ugly. Well, and some pretty serious questions about what he knew and when he knew it and how that was communicated or not to the public. Yes. And I think that's one of the big questions here. So not only how can you be so sure that the integrity of these elections were intact when we have these specific allegations, but yes, when did you find out? Are you saying that nationally everything was fine? You know,

are there particular contests that we should worry about? And why are we only finding out about this now? Is it really believable that CSIS would write an entire report and share it with foreign governments without actually telling our own prime minister? Is it really believable that the many reports that have been written over the last four years about this that have now come to light in newspapers because they've been leaked by courageous whistleblowers inside our intelligence apparatus never were brought before the Prime Minister of Canada? Of course that is not believable.

Justin Trudeau knew about this interference and he covered it up because he benefited from it. this interference and he covered it up because he benefited from it. Conservative leader Pierre Palliev obviously has a very different perspective than Trudeau on this and he says that this proves the need for something that has been called for for a while by his party, a Canadian foreign We need a public registry of all those who do paid work on behalf of foreign authoritarian regimes to influence or manipulate our politics or government. How would that actually work to prevent attempts at election interference? Well, essentially, it's not too different from a lobbyist registry, right? It's a way of forcing individuals and companies that are paid to act on behalf of foreign governments to register their activities with the federal government. It exists, a version of it elsewhere in the world, the United States, Australia have them. It is actually something that the federal government here in Canada is looking at, but it's really taken a long while to get this process going.

And it's thought that the conservative insistence on moving on this issue fed into part of why Beijing was trying to take down some of their candidates, or at least allegedly so, based on these reports seen by The Globe in the 2021 election. So big picture here. We know there are allegations that there may have been attempts to influence two different elections. Two different news outlets have seen details about how that may have happened. Has anyone actually established a timeline of when this information got on CSIS's radar and what people in government positions did or did not do to stop the interference before the elections were over or as soon as they knew about it? I think these are a lot of the questions that the political actors around this are asking right now. There's a parliamentary committee that is trying to get more information

about this. They're going to be having further hearings and calling witnesses trying to find out a bit more information. And as we talked about, Jodi, it's not the first time this has come up. It's not that there haven't been parliamentary hearings about this before. RCMP Commissioner Brenda Luckey told a committee last year that, for instance, they, the RCMP, had no evidence of foreign interference at the time of the 2019 election. But she added that the force has active investigations of foreign interference. We know that this site task force, the Security and Intelligence Threats to Election Task Force, was looking at these elections. They never issued any public warning about interference during either of these campaigns. So a lot of questions now, a lot of mounting pieces

of evidence. And again, we should say, like these new reports from the Globe, they're based on CSIS's own documents. So we know this was on the radar, but specifically what happened, how it was addressed, and the fact that we're only finding out about it now because it was leaked to the media, not because of any decision that either CSIS or anyone in the federal government took. I mean, all of that just adds to the growing list of questions around all of this. Well, and at the heart of it, I can imagine Canadians just wanting more clarity and more information because on the one hand, you have Trudeau and the Liberals sort of saying, didn't change the result of the elections, has been going on for a long time, and we've known about it. And on the other hand, you have the Conservatives saying, you know, this is an all-out assault and people should be alarmed. And somewhere in the middle, we're sitting here trying to figure out exactly what went down. Yeah, and some more specifics and answers that might help us get there. But it's clear there is a growing political pressure on the government to sort of show its work when it relates to past allegations and that there will be even more questions.

Whenever the next election might be, it's not scheduled to be until 2025, but Ottawa's favorite parlor game is always to guess how much sooner it might be. I think we can bet that there are going to be questions about how to address some of these issues the next time we find ourselves going to the polls. Okay, Catherine, thank you so much for being here today and taking us through it all. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. All right, that's all for today. I'm Jody Martinson sitting in for Jamie. Thank you for listening to FrontBurner.