An unredacted intelligence document unveils details of Beijing’s alleged attempts to interfere in Canada’s 2019 election. It alleges that covert funds ran through a network of community groups to Canadian federal candidates to further China’s interests.
The Privy Council Office (PCO) document is from February 2020 and a heavily redacted version of it was
filed earlier this month with a House of Commons committee. But an unredacted version was obtained by Global News, which
reported exclusively on it in a story published Dec. 21.
The document
stated that China’s “foreign interference efforts are likely to be more persistent and pervasive in future elections.”
Titled “PRC Foreign Interference: 2019 Elections,” the document alleged that Beijing used community groups to covertly fund Canadian members of an election interference network, such as political staffers and community leaders said to be “under broad guidance” from China’s Toronto consulate.
“Community leaders facilitate the clandestine transfer of funds and recruit potential targets,” the
PCO document said. It
said that “staff of targeted politicians provide advice on China-related issues” to the Chinese Toronto consulate.
Global News journalist Sam Cooper said in a
series of Twitter posts that the focus of Canadian intelligence investigations into the matter is Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s United Front Work Department (UFWD).
The UFWD is a global network that “provides a large and varied range of proxies or agents, some under the direct guidance of PRC [People’s Republic of China] intelligence officials ... to conceal funding,”
Cooper wrote in a Twitter post.
According to the PCO document, the
UFWD has “seen an expansion in resources and improved coordination” under Xi’s leadership.
Candidates
The 2020 PCO document said the UFWD is “also likely to offer candidates logistical support, favourable media coverage, and endorsements,” besides funding.
“The UFWD’s extensive network of quasi-official and local community and interest groups, allow it to obfuscate communication and the flow of funds between Canadian targets and Chinese officials,” said the PCO document,
according to Cooper.
The document also alleges that at least
11 federal candidates from the Greater Toronto Area were “targeted” by Chinese consulate officials during the 2019 election.
The document added that China’s aim in targeting the candidates was to “influence government officials into taking specific stances on China’s issues of interest.”
A
previous report by Cooper alleged that intelligence officials briefed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in January about Beijing’s funding of at least 11 candidates, but the prime minister has denied ever being briefed specifically about “any federal candidates receiving money from China.”
“Let me be very clear: I have no information, and I get briefed up regularly from our intelligence and security officials,”
he told reporters in Djerba, Tunisia, on Nov. 20.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic Leblanc and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly have also denied receiving such intel.
“The Chinese government regularly attempts to interfere in various aspects of Canadian society,” Leblanc told the House of Commons procedure and House affairs committee on Dec. 13. “Elections would not be excluded from some of their efforts to interfere.”
On Dec. 8, Trudeau’s national security advisor Jody Thomas
told the Commons national defence committee she has seen “no evidence” that covert Chinese funding went to 11 candidates in 2019.
“I have not been briefed and have no awareness, and I’ve asked the question of 11 candidates and the connection to the money that was in that report. I know nothing of that,” she said.
