The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Election Interference – Nigeria & Israel

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates.  The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus.   On this week’s edition of the Friday Focus podcast, Janice and Rudyard start the show with a discussion of allegations of Chinese election interference in Canada and why the government seems bent on downplaying the seriousness of what looks like an ongoing threat to Canadian Democracy. Next, the program dissects the outcome of the Nigerian elections. Was it effectively stolen by the ruling party? Friday Focus wraps up with a discussion of the deteriorating situation in Israel as security forces crack down on mass protests against judicial reform and Palestinian – Israeli violence escalates. To access full-length editions of the Friday Focus podcast, consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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contribution. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, the executive director of the monk debates. Welcome to this Friday Focus, our regular program each and every week where we dig into the big issues and ideas moving the news. We do this each and every Friday with Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, an internationally renowned scholar and author. Janice, how are we finding you today? The 3rd of March is, you know, should we be hopeful that winter is waning? A big storm on the way here, but in Toronto. But I got to say, I get optimistic when I see the calendar roll around to March 1st. They are saying the groundhog or meteorologist is saying a very stormy march into April,

but we are moving the clocks forward. That is the big reveal, as we say. While talking about reveals, we've got to begin the beginning of this show this week with a discussion of the revelations around Chinese election interference. In the last two elections, there are now credible media reports by some of Canada's largest media organizations sourced by senior officials within CIS. So for our American and international listeners, this is kind of like, I don't know, our FBI, we don't, FBI, CIA. We don't really have a foreign intelligence service in Canada, but we have a domestic intelligence service that's responsible for a whole bunch of things, including

preventing foreign manipulation of our democratic process. And the upshot of all this, Janice's allegations, serious allegations, that there are now sitting MPs in the House of Commons who are there in no small part or entirely as a result of the People's Republic of China using their purse, their power, their authority over diaspora populations in Canada to interfere in nomination processes and to ensure that pro-B Beijing candidates are now reflected, represented in the House of Commons and in particular in the caucus of the governing party, the Liberal Party of Canada. What do you make of this week's developments?

So let's both agree here, Rudyard. this is serious. Let's start there. Anybody that interferes, whether it's foreign or domestic, in the integrity of our election processes, that goes right to the heart of our democracy. So there's no question that this is a serious allegation.

Secondly, and again, we're in a bit of a gray zone here because this material was leaked to a global reporter by a CESIS official in a whistleblower capacity, apparently. But the head of CESIS refuses to confirm any of these allegations. But I think there are two pieces to the story that are really invidious, frankly. One that you use diaspora citizens. And all I can say is that this is a terrible,

terrible for all our loyal Chinese-Canadian citizens in this country. And Janice, let me just provide a little color there. What's alleged by these senior CIS leaks is that Chinese students at the University of Toronto and other GTA universities were threatened with the revocation of their student visas unless they volunteered time to these nomination fights for a election. fights for electing candidates to become the standard bearers, in this case for the Liberal Party, in Toronto, in critical ridings that have Chinese populations within them. So these are, in a sense, direct threats against students by the PRC and dangling the sword of Damocles over

their head unless they engage and cooperate with Beijing's, election interference initiatives. I think pretty sinister stuff. I think leave aside now what the effect of all of this is. We'll come to that. But that alone justifies the strongest possible action by the Canadian government because it puts every Chinese student at every university in Canada under a cloud completely unfairly. And they have no capacity to defend themselves then against these kinds of

suspicions. There's a second issue here, Roger, which I know you must have read and gone, oh my God, which is donations were made allegedly, again, allegedly to candidates, and the donors were reimbursed by the Chinese embassy or the Chinese embassy officials or whoever was doing this. That's fraud. That is fraudulent. And again, let's separate the impact of it, these practices are illegal in this country, and there's a good reason for them being illegal. They interfere with citizens' right to free, fair, and open participation in our elections. So it's inconceivable to me now that there not be, and here's where I probably diverge a little bit from the

consensus about a public inquiry because let me just say why I'm concerned about a public inquiry will not be public and David Vignoll made this point over and over I can't disclose because I can't disclose my sources but there's grounds

for criminal action here why is the RCMP not moving announcing that is moving immediately to investigate what is clearly criminal activity. We don't need to wait for a public inquiry to do this. Here, here. It's a strange scenario, though, Janice, because we have, in a sense, a governing

party and a prime minister who seemed to be stonewalling this. And to me, generally, without any partisan rancor, it just seems contrary to what, you know, basic leadership would demand in this moment, which is there is the national interest. And sometimes it comes along. And sometimes you need to assert that there are interests greater than partisanship. And yes, you know, I think all leaders, I mean, Donald Trump was a case in point. They hate having their victories clouded by, you know, suspicion and innuendo that, in fact, maybe it wasn't entirely their efforts. It might have been the efforts of a foreign power that helped in this case in the Liberal Party in 2021

in a very close minority election. these were not insignificant seats in terms of adding to the total seat count of Justin Trudeau's government. So I get why there could be all kinds of reasons not to go there or for the prime minister to just want to brush this aside. But I'm struck, Janice, as you say, it doesn't get more basic than this. And election, we're going to talk about more elections than this show later, the Nigerian election. You know, elections are pretty damn important. You know, they're part of our public civic infrastructure.

where if you let this stuff slip over time, as in the case of Nigeria, you can end up in a very bad place with not a lot of credibility, not a lot of sense of integrity around the process. And then your democracy is on the line. And I worry just about how slippery that slope is. So I'm really in favor of a more maximal response to this Chinese, these serious allegations of Chinese interference in Canada's democracy. process. Well, let me make a political argument here for a second, Roger. I'm actually mystified

because from everything we know, and we don't know the full story, we all know we don't know the full story here, but from everything we know, the Chinese strategy was make sure the liberals only get a minority. Well, there's not much of a story here. So why you avoid for the investigation. It's not clear to me at all. And there was a second report, which I want to talk about for a minute, and I understand why people would be suspicious. But I actually know its author quite well, Morris Rosenberg, who did a report that was released that said, yes, it was interference, but it didn't have an outcome on the election, frankly. This is not a new story. Roger, same argument about Russian interference in 2016.

So let's just take that one apart for a minute. You know you've been involved in elections. It is tough to change the outcome of a riding election. You've got to move the needle unless it's extremely close. You've got to move. But Janice, that's why this was so smart and insiduous, as they understood that nominations in Canada can be very important. The nominated candidate of the party that historically is won in that writing, 99% on the incumbent advantage goes on to become the MP.

And nomination battles are not regulated by Elections Canada. They are subject to Lucy Goosey, you know, party rules. And there's a lot of gray space we know that goes on historically in nominations. And I would think I'm surprised that the prime minister isn't coming out and saying, you know what, maybe now is time for Elections Canada to step in and run nominations. across Canada so we don't have or we try to reduce the risk of interference here. So I think this is an acute vulnerability that has been identified. And again, it just shocks me that the political establishment in this country, including the Morris Report, because I think we have to remember the Morris Report

was not focused specifically on these allegations. This was a report written a while ago that was really just about overall election security. And then we have the double irony that Morris was in fact the head of the Trudeau Foundation, a family foundation of which Justin Trudeau was previously a director, who received a gift from a Chinese businessman, a pledge of a million dollars, that CIS had allegedly captured conversations between that businessman and Chinese state officials saying in a sense he would be paid back

for the donation to the Trudeau Foundation. of the Trudeau Foundation this week, refunding some $200,000 of that gift. So I just, again, Ottawa I know is a very cozy, tight little space, but is it really appropriate for Morris to be putting himself forward as the good housekeeping seal of approval on the 2021 election when he himself was running the Trudeau Foundation for the Trudeau family and was involved in an incident of direct attempts

a Chinese government interference into that foundation, presumably to buy friends and favors amongst the Trudeauce. You can't make this stuff up. Well, okay, so let's not make it up. Morris Rosenberg. Is it experienced deputy minister, a long-time civil servant, health, justice, global affairs, Canada, for the donation, which, and I know he did not know what the backstory was that you just told, was $200,000 to the Trudeau Foundation and $800,000 to the University of Montreal, which took it, okay? Because they did not know at the time the story that you told. At the time it was controversial, though, Janice. There were news reports at the time about how out of the blue this donation was, who was this businessman,

there was media speculation at the time, and they still took the donation. There was media speculation, and they did their due diligence. and they checked at the time with officials, not at the political level, but at the highest level of security. And I know this personally. They did. And they got back nothing, frankly, Rudyard. So he was extremely careful at the time.

Now, why does this matter? Because there was a last piece here. And you put your finger right on it, which is how do we manage writing nominations? There is almost no regulatory. framework. And once somebody gets nominated, he found, and I think there's a strong case to be made here, and it's important for listeners, it did not affect the outcome of the election in these writings. That's what he found. Okay. Now, political scientists need to take that one on. We need to go back now and look at those numbers and see how big the margin were in these contested writings.

But I think we separate out the issues. Did we violate criminal law in this? country, yes, in at least two areas, there should be criminal action now. Two, is there a vulnerability here? Yes, you identified it. We need to regulate nomination procedures. They matter. They choose candidates. Why is an elections Canada on this right now, frankly?

But thirdly, it's important to understand we're less fragile than this whole story makes us look, right? because you interfere because you run a social media campaign because you have certain kinds of ads on TV doesn't necessarily mean you change

the way. Yeah, but Janice, this was far worse than what the Russians tried to do in the United States. This involved nomination battles in ridings in the GTA and the lower mainland in British Columbia

where again, if you have the ability as we all know, to stack those meetings, to support candidates that have gone on now to become MPs who have towed conspicuously pro-B Beijing, pro-PRC lines, there's a lot of, you know, casual, maybe more than casual evidence to suggest that Beijing was successful in placing, allegedly, could be more than one, Janus. There are lots of, there's lots of talk here that this is, this could be in the high single digits. It could be in the low double digits. This is not just one, there's one identified, alleged, but there is, there, where there's

smoke, there's often fire. And if there's no inquiry and there's stonewalling from the government, we're never going to know. My just final point on the Morris thing is I'm just not so sure in the United States that, for example, if somebody had run Joe Biden's family foundation, I don't think the American public or the American media or the American political system would accept that person going on to write a report on whether an election was, you know, safe and secure for Joe Biden when he was the incumbent president and had succeeded in becoming reelected.

It all just seems remarkably cozy and needlessly debatable. Like, why do people in Ottawa not recuse themselves? Why don't they simply say, okay, I was the head of the Trudeau Foundation. maybe I really shouldn't be putting myself forward here to to be the person that kind of waves all clear on a really important issue of foreign election interference when the guy who's kind of commissioning the report in a way is my former boss and now my current boss as prime minister. It just seems like we're drinking our own bathwater. Okay, let me bounce on back at you, right? What are your top two changes?

never mind public inquiries will take two years and this you know everybody will move on by the time you get to it if you were running the show what top two changes would you want to see now to prevent this happening before the next election again well number one is just a no-brainer get political parties out of running their own nominations because we know that there is you know crooked as a two dollar bill time and time again there's gross abuse you abuses of the nomination process, bring elections Canada in. Second, you know, this donations thing, it's really tough to figure out, you know, how do you stop people getting paid back who've made a donation? But I think what I would do is what you're suggesting, Janice, is unfortunately, those people need to be prosecuted. They now, you know, whether they were intimidated or not, you know, it can be horrible situations where they have family members back in China.

and it's quite possible that the Chinese government is leaning on them here in Canada with threats about their family back in China. So there can be horrible situations here, and I don't want to impugn anyone unfairly. But I think, unfortunately, you've got to go after these people and you've got to make an example of them because that'll get the message out to other communities that if you engage in this type of behavior,

there is accountability and there are consequences. I don't think you go after these people. I think you go after that people. people who did this to them. You go after the embassy. You go after the funders and you do it in a remorseless, unrelenting way, registered. And the reason I say this, I know how scared some of our international students are of their local embassies. But at the end of the day, Janus, these are employees of the consulate or the embassy. They just go back to Beijing. And so unless you're going to shut down diplomatic relations with China, this is a Trojan horse.

that's under the wire, really hard to get rid of it. Well, you know, I think there are things we can do. For example, you expel the officer that's running that program. You shine a light on it. It is not the students. They, as you rightly said, Richard, they're terrified. And I know it personally. But you go one step up the chain, not all the way, but you go one step up.

And we've done that with other embassies. And you say, no way, no way. And you shut down that operation. make it public. And that's up to the RCMP now to get on it. Not to wait for a public inquiry. Just as it's frankly up to elections Canada, come out and make

our recommendation process is corrupt. We know it not only from this story, but from lots of others that you and I know about. Enough already. If we want a democracy that we all have confidence in, we are going to regulate this process.

Here, here. And my final point, maybe just a solution on the side, but, you know, we're allowing people to vote who are Canadian citizens who've had really no recent residency in the country. There were previous restrictions where people had been required to establish residency in the five years prior to voting. Those restrictions have been removed. And I think if we think about large diaspora populations that are in Hong Kong, that could be subject to even, in a sense, worse intimidation and pressure. We need to start, I think, pulling back on this idea of extending the franchise. You know, there's been musings about, you know, municipal elections where non-citizens would vote in those elections. The more we extend the franchise,

the more we loosen up on this, I think the more it gives foreign powers like China opportunities to interfere and be bad actors. You know, Rudyard, we should come back to this. because there is nothing more important to all of us than the integrity of our election processes. And finally, if I were the prime minister, which I'm not, thank goodness, I would get out in front of this one. This does not sit well with Canadians. It doesn't. Okay, let's take a quick break.

We're back on the other side. We're going to update you on the Nigeria election that Janus was talking about last week as a really important litmus test possibly for the future trajectory. trajectory of Africa. And we're also going to revisit Israel. Wow, things are really, I don't know, going from 10 on the dial to 11 plus, lots of protests of really a sense that something fundamental is at stake in Israel right now. We'll have that discussion for you for our muck donors right after this break. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast to get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program. Simply go to our website,

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