After Decades of Shrugging Off Warnings, Canada’s Foreign Interference Inquiry Is About to Start

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa in a file photo. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Although warnings about China’s influence operations in Canada have been raised for decades, they have been largely dismissed by those in power. The public inquiry into foreign interference set to begin on Jan. 29 represents a rare move by the federal government to take a systematic, in-depth look at the problem—though some say it may not be enough.

“It’s going to be skin-deep,” former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu told The Epoch Times last December, referring to his doubts about the significance of the inquiry. He and others have raised questions about the way the inquiry is being managed and its parameters.

Two Canadian politicians allegedly connected to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence activities according to leaked CSIS documents and sources cited by media have full standing in the inquiry.

The inquiry’s commissioner, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, granted former Liberal MP Han Dong and former Ontario cabinet minister Michael Chan this level of standing precisely because of the allegations against them—they can give first-hand testimony on those matters and they have a reputational interest in the inquiry’s outcome, she said in her Dec. 4, 2023, decision. Mr. Dong and Mr. Chan deny the allegations, and have launched legal actions against the media who first reported on the CSIS leaks.

Mr. Chiu and others have expressed concerns about the two politicians’ standing, which according to the decision gives them “full participation rights, including the right to access certain non-public documents and to question witnesses.”

“[They] could have been closely linked to a foreign regime that’s set to infiltrate and interfere with Canada. Their access to classified information—the source, the methods of how intelligence is collected, for example—could actually jeopardize our country’s intelligence collection going further in the future,” Mr. Chiu said.

The first five days of the inquiry will focus specifically on how to balance public disclosure with national security concerns. Experts will testify on this subject, and Justice Hogue will consider how transparent the inquiry can be and under what circumstances to keep testimony and evidence behind closed doors.

The second set of hearings, scheduled for March, is where the commission will really get into the investigation.

The scope of the inquiry includes a look at all potential interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, including from China, Russia, and other foreign actors. The commission will also look at the flow of information between intelligence officials, elections officials, and senior decision-makers in the government.

Among those set to testify in the first round of hearings is former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director Richard Fadden. He raised the alarm on foreign interference in 2010 and was effectively shut down.

Past Attempts to Address Interference

In 2010, when he was head of CSIS, Mr. Fadden alleged that some municipal politicians and two provincial cabinet ministers were under the influence of a foreign government. He was condemned by a House of Commons national security committee and some MPs called for his resignation.

Others had raised alarms before Mr. Fadden.

In a joint report in 1997, the RCMP and CSIS detailed how CCP intelligence and CCP-linked business people and gangs had collaborated on espionage operations in Canada and sought to increase the regime’s influence. The report was leaked to the media at the time.

The report was dismissed, however, by the federal Security Intelligence Review Committee, which said it “found no evidence of any substantial and immediate threat.”

In 2021, Global News reporter Sam Cooper shed further light on the issue when he published his book “Wilful Blindness: How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West.”

The book follows Mr. Cooper’s investigation of suspicious money-laundering activities in Vancouver’s casinos. He detailed how CCP-linked gangs and operatives allegedly laundered money and fuelled the opioid crisis in British Columbia. He also looked at how CCP agents in Canada rubbed shoulders with politicians in the province with the goal of gaining influence.

The B.C. government did launch an inquiry into the money laundering, in May 2019, and published a report in 2022. The report said politicians should have taken more action, but Commissioner Austin Cullen said he didn’t have evidence of political corruption playing a role.

In recent years, other evidence of CCP attempts to influence Canadian institutions have gained increasing attention. Among them are the Confucius Institutes being hosted in Canadian academic institutions aimed at influencing Western perspectives on China.

In April last year, then-public safety minister Marco Mendicino testified before a House committee that the RCMP had taken action to shut down secret Chinese police stations operating on Canadian soil.

Ottawa announced earlier this month that it would stop funding research projects that involve researchers who are affiliated with or receive support from any institution included in a list of dozens of research organizations, most of them based in China, due to national security concerns.

The CCP’s imprisonment of the “two Michaels,” Canadians Michael Korvig and Michael Spavor, from 2018 to 2021 also caused a considerable rise in diplomatic tensions between Beijing and Ottawa.

When allegations about election interference emerged in media reports starting in November 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s responses included a suggestion that such allegations may be racist and that the intelligence leaks may be inaccurate.

“One of the things we’ve seen, unfortunately over the past years, is a rise in anti-Asian racism linked to the pandemic, and concerns being raised or arising around people’s loyalties,” Mr. Trudeau said on Feb. 27, 2023, in response to questions about the foreign influence allegations against Mr. Dong, a Liberal MP at the time, who denied the allegations.

On Feb. 23, 2023, Mr. Trudeau told reporters the government is concerned about intelligence leaks and “inaccuracies in those leaks.”

Public pressure, however, has helped push a reluctant Liberal government to finally hold a public inquiry.

Two-thirds of Canadians believe the Chinese regime sought to interfere with elections, according to an Angus Reid poll released March 1, 2023. Another poll released several days later said 40 percent of Canadians see the CCP as a threat and 22 percent see it as an enemy.

When the government rejected the idea of a public inquiry and opted to appoint a special rapporteur to investigate foreign interference in March 2023, only half (52 percent) of Canadians thought it was a sincere attempt to address the problem, according to an Ipsos poll.

That poll found that 48 percent thought the investigation was a “coverup.”

Two of Beijing’s goals were to see Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals re-elected as a minority government and to defeat Conservative politicians considered unfriendly to the CCP, according to The Globe and Mail’s reporting on CSIS documents it had viewed.

David Johnston, whose appointment as special rapporteur of a probe into allegations of foreign interference was criticized due to his past ties with the Trudeau family, published a report on May 23 that dismissed the idea of a public inquiry. He said his primary concern regarding an inquiry was about publicly disclosing classified information.

On May 31, MPs passed a motion calling on Mr. Johnston to step down, and he resigned on June 9. The major parties negotiated terms for a foreign interference inquiry, and agreed on the terms on July 7.

And Finally an Inquiry

The allegations around election interference are many and complex. We'll take a quick look at a couple of the main allegations and actors in the upcoming inquiry.

Former Liberal MP Dong is one of the two politicians suspected of interference who have been given full standing in the inquiry. Mr. Dong has denied all allegations and started legal proceedings against Global News, which published reports implicating him.

A Feb. 24, 2023, Global News article said Mr. Dong was one of at least 11 federal candidates in the Toronto area supported by Beijing in the 2019 election. The report, which cited leaked intelligence information, said CSIS considered Mr. Dong a “witting affiliate” in CCP election interference. It said Chinese international students were bussed in from other regions, given fake addresses, and coerced to vote for Dong’s candidacy for the Liberals.

A follow-up Global article in March said Mr. Dong advised then-Chinese Consul General Han Tao to delay releasing the two Michaels. The article cites national security sources.

The other politician with full standing in the inquiry who was allegedly involved in interference is former Ontario cabinet minister Chan, now the deputy mayor of Markham, Ontario.

Mr. Chan’s ties to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto raised interference suspicions, according to a Feb. 13 Globe and Mail report citing national security sources. Mr. Trudeau and senior aides were warned about this, the Globe said. Back in 2015, the Globe also reported that Mr. Chan was one of the two provincial cabinet ministers Mr. Fadden had warned was under foreign influence in 2010.

Mr. Chan has denied the allegations and launched a lawsuit over the Globe’s reporting.

The Epoch Times previously reported that Mr. Chan praised the CCP’s national security law aimed at quashing dissent in Hong Kong, a law condemned by Canada and other Western nations as suppressing freedoms. Mr. Chan made the comments in an interview with state-owned China News Service.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Mr. Dong and Mr. Chan for comment but has not received a reply.

On the other side of the issue, Conservative MP Michael Chong and NDP MP Jenny Kwan have full standing in the inquiry as alleged targets of CCP intimidation. Both have been critical of the regime.

A common CCP tactic to silence dissidents abroad is to threaten their families back in China. Human rights groups critical of Beijing raised concerns that giving Mr. Dong and Mr. Chan full standing will give them access to witness testimony—and if they do have ties to the CCP as alleged, that could put witnesses in a difficult situation.

“Some witnesses may feel the public inquiry no longer provides a safe space for them to speak up and share their experience and analysis of foreign interference,” Gloria Fung, president of Canada-Hong Kong Link, told The Epoch Times in December.

The commission conducting the inquiry said it would establish a process to allow witnesses with fears of reprisal to keep their identities confidential.

Others with full standing include several human rights organizations focused on China issues grouped together as a “Human Rights Coalition,” as well as the Russian Canadian Democratic Alliance, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the federal elections office, and the Government of Canada.

The federal Conservatives have criticized the inclusion of the government, as it essentially means the Liberals have full standing. That means the Conservatives will only be privy to information that is made public, whereas the Liberals will have access to confidential information. Justice Hogue has defended her decision, saying the government must have standing and it’s not about favouring a political party.

The Conservative Party, along with the NDP and several other groups and individuals, will have intervener standing in the first phase of the inquiry. That phase will focus on gathering facts about interference. The commission is scheduled to release its report on the findings from that phase by May 4.

The second phase is scheduled to commence in the fall, and that will look at policy and how the government can counter interference. The final report on the inquiry is expected by the end of the year.

Andrew Chen, Omid Ghoreishi, and Noé Chartier contributed to this report.