Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly was not briefed on foreign interference conducted by China as she was attempting to rebuild ties with the country, the Foreign Interference Commission heard.
“I was appointed after the return of the two Michaels to Canada, that’s important to understand, because my work is to re-establish a functional relationship with China,” Joly testified to the commission on Oct. 10.
Joly became foreign affairs minister after the Liberals won reelection on Sept. 20, 2021. Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who had been detained for over a thousand days in apparent retaliation for Canada acting on a U.S. extradition warrant for Huawei executive Meng Wangzhou, were released a few days later.
During the time between her appointment as foreign affairs minister in the fall of 2021 and the summer of 2023, Joly said she was not provided with a briefing on foreign interference or the threat landscape.
Canada’s house arrest of Meng threw cold water over Ottawa’s diplomatic relationship with Beijing. China’s detention of the “two Michaels” also impacted Ottawa’s perspective and approach toward China.
“I think it’s fair to say that China, up until relatively recently, enjoyed a fairly positive reputation and reception in this country and in this town,” Joly’s deputy minister David Morrison told the inquiry on Oct. 4.
Joly received briefings on foreign interference after multiple intelligence leaks appeared in media, leading opposition parties to put pressure on the government to hold an inquiry on the threat.
Joly told the inquiry she wasn’t aware of the activities undertaken by Zhao until the Globe’s article.
“For me, it was obvious the situation was untenable and he needed to leave absolutely,” said Joly, noting how her government had been dealing with other situations involving China in Canada, such as its illegal police stations and its spy balloon that crossed over North America.
Diplomatic Steps
While Joly said this information had not been brought to her attention, her department was nonetheless active in making representations on the issue of foreign interference with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).It says that GAC sent four diplomatic notes to the Chinese embassy in Ottawa on the issue of foreign interference since the fall of 2021. Two of the notes pertain to the PRC’s overseas police stations, with one in October 2022 requesting they be shut down. The content of the other two notes is entirely redacted.
Aside from the diplomatic notes, GAC indicates having made 31 representations to the PRC on the matter of foreign interference since October 2021, with the latest date being March 2023.
In one instance, GAC approached Chinese Ambassador Cong Peiwu in February 2023 on the subjects of “intrusion of surveillance balloon in North American airspace” and “unacceptable behaviours by Chinese authorities, including interference, police stations, and malign cyber activities.”
In another instance in January 2022, a GAC official raised concerns about the activities of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) with then-Chinese vice-minister of foreign affairs Xie Feng. The UFWD is a Chinese Communist Party organ in charge of orchestrating foreign interference overseas, using assets such as community groups and proxies.
Joly told the inquiry this instance pertained to a PRC request to create a UFWD position in Canada, which Ottawa refused.
At that point in time, Joly said she had not been briefed about how the UFWD is connected to foreign interference.
“Would that have been helpful for you to know at that time?” asked Mani Kakkar, counsel for NDP MP Jenny Kwan.
“For sure,” said Joly, adding that her government’s Indo-Pacific Strategy takes account of the issue. “So I try to delineate the problem and make sure that resources are attributed,” she said. The strategy was launched in November 2022 in a bid to improve Canada’s standing in the region and deal with an increasingly assertive China.
“At the time, Canada did not know how China was operating in Canada and elsewhere in the world, [so] we decided to create a China Bureau at Global Affairs,” said Joly.
The Foreign Interference Commission will hold the last public hearings of this phase next week, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc testifying.
The commission is currently focused on probing Ottawa’s capacity to respond to foreign interference. Last spring, the inquiry looked at interference in the last two elections.
In an interim report released in May, the commission said foreign interference had not impacted the general election results, but that it could have impacted individual ridings. A final report must be tabled by the end of the year.
