Canada faces questions over alleged Chinese interference

When the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) contacted Member of Parliament Kenny Chiu ahead of Canada’s 2021 federal election, he was baffled.

He never expected to be part of a CSIS investigation, let alone one that required a face-to-face discussion at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.

“By that time, everything had moved online, so it was quite unexpected that they insisted on a face-to-face meeting,” Chiu told Al Jazeera.

But the subject of the meeting was very sensitive: the alleged Chinese interference in the Canadian elections. And soon, it would be a dominant issue in Canadian politics, shaping Chiu’s political fortunes and eventually even that of the prime minister.

Intelligence leaked CSIS reports in recent months indicate that Canada’s intelligence community has been concerned about Chinese election interference for decades.

The documents suggest that the Chinese government has not only been spreading disinformation, but has also been operating clandestinely. network to influence the last two federal elections, in 2019 and 2021.

The alleged network includes Chinese diplomats, Canadian politicians, businessmen and international students. They are accused of using their influence to support pro-Beijing candidates and undermine voices critical of China.

One such figure is the former Chinese Consul General in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling. In a leak to The Globe and Mail newspaper, Tong allegedly bragged that the Chinese efforts resulted in the defeat of two Conservative Party of Canada candidates in the province of British Columbia. Chiu was one of them.

Misinformation in the electoral campaign

Chiu began to notice a change six months before his re-election bid, in the early months of 2021.

First elected to represent the Steveston-Richmond East district in 2019, Chiu had recently introduced a private members bill called the Foreign Influence Registration Act.

It would have required people working for foreign governments and political organizations to record their communications with Canadian officials if they sought, for example, to put forward policy proposals or influence public contracts.

According to Chiu, the bill was intended to provide Canada with tools to combat foreign interference without single-handedly targeting any particular country.

“However, we saw a lot of misinformation circulating about the bill, saying things like: ‘It’s going to put Chinese Canadians at risk and that people with ties to China will risk a C$400,000 fine’ ( around $300,000), Chiu said. “Of course, none of that was true.”

Chiu himself was attacked. “There were also smears directed at me, saying that I am a sellout and accusing me of racism despite my own Chinese heritage.”

But Chiu wasn’t the only one who noticed increased scrutiny after his bill was introduced. Canadian disinformation monitor DisInfoWatch closely watched stories about Chiu and other Conservative Party candidates during the 2021 election.

It found that there were strong indications of a coordinated campaign aimed at influencing Chinese-Canadian voters.

Benjamin Fung, a professor of cybersecurity at McGill University, also analyzed the misinformation spread during the election. He also concluded that there were links to Asia.

“It was widespread, but a lot of the activity would be concentrated in a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. time slot, just not Canadian time, but Chinese time,” Fung told Al Jazeera. “So it was most likely being coordinated from somewhere in East Asia.”

Chiu County had a large Chinese-Canadian community, and experts found that a sizeable proportion of the disinformation was being spread via WeChat, a Chinese social media app widely used in the diaspora community.

With approximately 1 million users in Canada, WeChat was one of the few apps that enabled communication between people inside and outside of China.

Chiu subsequently lost his re-election bid. And his private member’s bill on foreign interference was finally shelved.

Scandal by the Liberal Party

However, the precise effect of the alleged Chinese interference is difficult to measure.

While Canada’s government acknowledged that China meddled in the 2019 and 2021 elections, a report released in February found that those efforts did not significantly affect the outcome of either vote.

Chiu agrees that Chinese interference might not have changed the outcome of his 2021 campaign. But, he insists, that doesn’t mean foreign meddling shouldn’t be taken seriously.

“It is not just our democracy that is under threat. It is our sovereignty as a nation that is at stake,” she said.

Recent revelations about election interference have ignited a political firestorm for the ruling Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

A Liberal Party MP, Han Dong, was identified among the leaks as having private meetings with the Chinese Consul General in Toronto, Han Tao.

National security sources cited by CTV News accuse Dong of encouraging China to delay the release of two Canadians, Michael Sparov and Michael Kovrig, who were detained in 2018 on espionage charges.

Releasing them too soon, Dong supposedly hinted, would benefit the Conservative Party in the polls.

Dong has denied making any such suggestions, but confirmed that he spoke with the consul general. His office did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment, and Dong has since resigned from the Liberal Party and served as an independent.

Amid mounting political pressure, Trudeau appointed an independent special rapporteur in March to review reports of election interference and determine whether a public inquiry was necessary.

His critics say it’s too little too late. They accuse Trudeau of being more obsessed with stopping leaks than addressing the interference itself.

Capitalizing on anti-Chinese hate

Initially, Trudeau dismissed the allegations against Dong as evidence of anti-Asian racism.

“One of the things that we have unfortunately seen in recent years is an increase in Anti-Asian racism linked to the pandemic and concerns that arise around people’s loyalty,” Trudeau said at a news conference in Mississauga.

Allegations that Dong was “in some way not loyal to Canada,” he added, “should not be considered.”

But some experts say the issue of anti-Asian hate has been used as a smokescreen, in some cases, to disguise election interference efforts.

Reports have shown that instances of racism and xenophobia against Asians increased in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic and afterward, resulting in an increased sense of insecurity among Canadians of Asian descent.

Beijing has been able to play on such concerns, dismissing criticism of its interference efforts as further evidence of anti-Asian bias, according to research analyst Ai-Men Lau. He works for the Doublethink Lab, an organization that tracks influence operations.

The solution, he told Al Jazeera, is to engage directly with Chinese diaspora communities to build trust in Canada’s public institutions. But the government initiatives she has seen so far have been top-down.

“I haven’t seen anything yet that is forward thinking in terms of what we are going to do for the next election,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we have a particularly nasty habit in Canada of being incredibly reactive to any accusation of foreign interference rather than being proactive.”

China, for its part, has consistently denied the accusations who interfered in the Canadian elections. In a message board on the official website of the Chinese embassy, ​​a spokesperson called the accusations “sheer slander and complete nonsense.”

Al Jazeera contacted the Chinese consulate in Vancouver and Toronto, as well as the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, but neither responded to requests for comment.

Beyond electoral interference

Some advocates believe the interference extends well beyond Canada’s electoral system. In 2019, Canadian activist Rukiye Turdush said she uncovered evidence that students planned to obstruct a talk she gave at McMaster University in Ontario, in collaboration with Chinese officials.

Turdush, a member of the Uyghur ethnic group, had given a talk about the situation in Xinjiang, the region in the far west of China where around 1 million Uyghurs have stayed. incarcerated in re-education campsaccording to the United Nations.

A Chinese student present accused her of lying and cursed her before storming out. But then Turdush received a series of WeChat screenshots that allegedly showed Chinese students gathering information about her and her son, apparently to intimidate her.

According to the chats, shared with Al Jazeera, the Chinese student groups informed and coordinated with the Chinese embassy in Canada to disrupt their event.

“It shows how deep Chinese interference runs in Canadian society today and how many different Chinese actors are involved,” Turdush told Al Jazeera.

In 2022, the Spanish NGO Safeguard Defenders released a report revealing a global network of more than 100 overseas police service stations operating on behalf of the Chinese government.

He identified three sites in Toronto alone, with other locations believed to be in Montreal and Vancouver.

The presence of such police stations does not surprise Toronto resident Mimi Lee, a member of the NGO Torontonian HongKongers Action Group.

The influence of the Chinese government is pervasive, he said. “Chinese government interference exists from top to bottom in Canada today.”