MP Han Dong, right, arrives to appear as a witness at the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions in Ottawa on April 2.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Canada’s inquiry into foreign interference is wrapping up its first week of public hearings, which heard testimonies from Canadian diaspora groups, election officials and politicians targeted by China.
The hearings will focus on Chinese meddling in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections, as reported in The Globe and Mail and based on documents and national security sources. They’re being held by the Foreign Interference Commission, led by Quebec Superior Court Justice Marie-Josée Hogue.
This week, witnesses included Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault, Commissioner of Canada Elections Caroline Simard, former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong, CSIS Director David Vigneault and MP Han Dong.
Here’s a summary of the first few days of the inquiry.
March 27: The Foreign Interference Commission ‘must walk a very fine line,’ Justice Hogue says
Justice Hogue said she wants to release as much information as possible about meddling in the 2019 and 2021 elections but cautioned that some details must be kept secret to protect national security.
“I want to emphasize that, up to now, confidentiality related to national-security issues has in no way hindered my ability to search for the truth. The commission has had access to a large number of classified documents in their entirety,” Justice Hogue said in her opening remarks. “[Still] the commission must walk a very fine line in its work.”
The commission heard from a panel of Chinese, Sikh, Iranian, Russian and Uyghur-Canadian activists – testimony that described threats of verbal and physical violence and even an alleged murder.
Leaders of diaspora groups detailed how their communities have been bullied and harassed by hostile foreign states and their proxies in Canada, telling the Foreign Interference Commission that the intimidation is a threat to Canadian democracy.
Read the full breakdown of Day 1 here.
March 28: Tough for Elections Canada to properly examine foreign interference
The committee heard from officials about challenges Elections Canada faced during its foreign interference investigations.
Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault said he doesn’t have the authority to properly examine foreign interference allegations – specifically whether some donors were encouraged to make campaign contributions in the 2021 election to candidates favoured by China. Caroline Simard, the Commissioner of Canada Elections, which investigates electoral wrongdoing, also complained about the difficulties of investigating foreign meddling.
Mr. Perrault said his office looked into such alleged behaviour but conceded it was difficult to track hidden transactions because Elections Canada is limited by the information available in financial returns, the lack of detailed expense reporting by riding associations and its inability to seek supporting documents.
“There were allegations about money that were considered as contributions and then that was spent to reimburse a political expenditure,” Mr. Perrault told the inquiry. “We made an analysis to see if there was not a very close relationship between the monies coming from a donor to someone who receives compensation for services but we did not see anything to justify a reference to the commissioner. … We asked for that from Parliament on many occasions but we don’t have access now.”
Read the full breakdown of Day 2 here.
April 1: Information acquired about Chinese state interference was never shared with party leaders
Testimonies were heard from a group of senior bureaucrats who were responsible for detecting threats to the 2021 federal election and failed to share explicit intelligence about Chinese state interference.
Documents tabled show that the Security and Intelligence Threat to Elections Task Force (SITE), which is composed of senior civil servants, had classified intelligence that outlined sophisticated Chinese state influence operations in Canadian democracy.
The information was never shared with the senior representatives of the Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic parties who had national-security clearances to be briefed on foreign interference in the 2021 election.
“I don’t recall getting this document,” said Walied Soliman, chair of Norton Rose Fulbright law firm and co-chair of the Conservative Party’s 2021 campaign. “I think any political party would have been alarmed by that statement and would have at the very least been engaged and asked a lot of questions to try to develop some sort of strategy to at least institutionalize the monitoring of that.”
Liberal Party national director Azam Ishmael and former NDP director Anne McGrath also said they did not recall ever seeing the document.
Read the full breakdown of Day 3 here.
April 2: Han Dong refutes allegation he advised against the release of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig
MP Han Dong, a former member of the Liberal Party who now sits as an independent, testified that he could not recall advising a top Chinese diplomat against releasing the two Michaels detained in China. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) alleges that, in a recorded phone call, Mr. Dong told the consul-general that releasing the two men would affirm “the effectiveness of a hard-line Canadian approach” to the People’s Republic of China.
In his testimony, Mr. Dong acknowledged that the call happened but insisted he had always pressed Chinese diplomats for the early release of the two men.
Mr. Dong told the inquiry: “I don’t recall saying that.”
Michael Chan, currently the deputy mayor of Markham, Ont., and formerly an Ontario provincial cabinet minister, also testified on April 2. He acknowledged that over the years he had crossed paths with Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei, who was expelled by the Canadian government in 2023.
Read the full breakdown of Day 4 here.
April 3: Erin O’Toole says Conservative party was targeted by misinformation orchestrated by China
Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, two sitting MPs and a defeated parliamentarian testified that senior government officials responsible for the integrity of the 2021 election campaign failed to share intelligence on Beijing’s meddling.
Mr. O’Toole said his party was targeted by misinformation orchestrated by China and its proxies that led to the defeat of as many as nine candidates in the 2021 election. But he stressed that he does not believe Chinese interference changed the outcome of the vote, which produced a Liberal minority.
Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong told the inquiry that CSIS never told him he was targeted by China during the 2021 election campaign until after The Globe reported a Chinese diplomat had been gathering information on him and his family in Hong Kong. CSIS then informed Mr. O’Toole and NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who also testified on April 3, that they too had been part of the Chinese interference operations.
“I never knew at that juncture nor did I during the last election that I was actually clandestinely, corrosively and corruptly being targeted by the government of the PRC here on Canadian soil,” he said. “Had I known I would have gone on high alert during that election.”
Read the full breakdown of Day 5 here.
April 4: China paid approximately $250,000 to ‘threat actors’ working in Canada, inquiry told
The commission discussed an unclassified summary of intelligence held by security and intelligence departments and agencies – primarily CSIS.
One intelligence document, made public as part of the hearings, suggests Chinese officials may have transferred about $250,000 to “threat actors” – a term often used to refer to people and groups with malign intent – in Canada in late 2018 or early 2019.
The document says that prior to and during the 2019 election “a group of known and suspected People’s Republic of China related threat actors in Canada, including PRC officials, worked in loose coordination with one another to covertly advance PRC interests though Canadian democratic institutions.” It adds that “some of these threat actors received financial support from the PRC.”
The inquiry also heard testimony from RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme, CSIS Director David Vigneault and Dan Rogers, a former Communications Security Establishment official who is now deputy national security adviser to the Prime Minister.
Mr. Vigneault was asked about CSIS briefings with various MPs on recent elections. He met several times ahead of the 2019 election with Karina Gould, who at the time was minister of democratic institutions. He also met with the full cabinet, deputy ministers and others, according to a document seen by the inquiry.
Read the full breakdown of Day 6 here.
What to expect for the inquiry’s remaining days
The commission is expected to hear testimonies from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his chief of staff, Katie Telford, Minister of Public Safety Dominic LeBlanc, Government House Leader Karina Gould and others during its second week. The hearings are expected to close April 10.
The commission is required to deliver a report by May 3.
It will hold a second round of public hearings, with a broader focus on democratic institutions and the experiences of diaspora communities, in the fall. Those hearings will examine proposals to combat foreign interference. A final report on those proposals is due in late December.