The People's Republic of China made attempts to interfere in the 2019 Canadian federal election and 2021 Canadian federal election and threatened Canadian politicians, according to Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Parliament of Canada's Foreign Interference Commission. In late 2022, the Global News television network reported on a suspected attempt by the PRC to infiltrate the Parliament of Canada by funding a network of candidates to run in the 2019 Canadian federal election. In early 2023, The Globe and Mail newspaper published a series of articles reporting that the CSIS, in several classified documents, advised that China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) and United Front Work Department had employed disinformation campaigns and undisclosed donations to support preferred candidates during the 2021 Canadian federal election, with the aim of ensuring that the Liberals would win again, but only with a minority. In February 2023, CSIS concluded that the Chinese government interfered in the 2019 and 2021 elections. In May 2024, an official probe by parliament's Foreign Interference Commission found that China interfered in both elections.
Canadian opposition political parties demanded a public inquiry into what it called failures by the Canadian government of Justin Trudeau to warn parliamentarians of China's activities, notify parliamentarians whom China had targeted, and further protect Canadian democratic procedures. In May 2023, the Canadian government expelled Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei, accused of intimidating a Canadian politician. Rejecting a full public inquiry, Trudeau nominated former Governor General of Canada David Johnston to investigate the allegations. Johnston filed an interim report in May 2023. In his report, he described China's interference as a danger to Canadian democracy, stated that some of the media reports were partially incorrect, and that the Canadian intelligence services and Canadian government needed to make several improvements to counter the threat and protect members of Parliament. While several opposition political parties had called for a full-scale judicial inquiry into the allegations, Johnston recommended against this, stating that the intelligence information is considered "top secret" and could not be discussed in a fully-open inquiry. Johnston intended to continue his inquiry with public hearings and a final report in October 2023, but instead resigned as the special rapporteur on June 9.
Following Johnston's resignation, Trudeau tasked Intergovernmental Affairs minister Dominic LeBlanc with negotiating with opposition parties to discuss the possibility of a public inquiry on the issue. In September 2023, Justin Trudeau commissioned Québec justice Marie-Josée Hogue to preside over the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions. Her mandate includes investigating foreign interference from China, but also from other states deemed hostile to Canada, such as Russia. In May 2024, the inquiry issued its preliminary report, finding that China engaged in foreign interference in both elections, but the interference did not affect the ultimate result of either election. The final report, issued in January 2025, identified disinformation spread on social media as a major threat to Canadian democracy.
Background
According to former Canadian and U.S. intelligence officials, Chinese overseas operations in Canada have risen to the extent that they represent an alarming security threat to the United States, which has conducted a secret probe of the issue. These operations were said to consist of espionage, compromise of politicians and government officials, election interference, and control of individuals and companies with ties to China, such as via foreign police stations.
By the time of the 2021 election, the Conservative Party had adopted a tough stance on China, which included a proposed withdrawal from the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a reduction in dependence on Chinese imports, and a ban on the use of Huawei network equipment. The Chinese government described the stance as "smearing China" and threatened that it would "invite counterstrikes".
Advance warnings by intelligence officials In June 2017, the Canadian National Security Advisor drafted a Memorandum for the Prime Minister, advising Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that PRC agents were "assisting Canadian candidates running for political offices". This document, which was copied to the Clerk of the Privy Council, went on to say that officials had documented evidence of China attempting to infiltrate "all levels of government" and alleged that, "[t]here is a substantial body of evidence that Chinese officials are actively pursuing a strategy of engagement to influence Canadian officials in ways that can compromise the security of Canada and the integrity of Canadian institutions".
Trudeau received a classified report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) in August 2019. It warned that public officials across all levels of government were being targeted and the government had been "slow to react to the threat of foreign interference" and "must do better". A redacted copy of the report was subsequently released in March 2020.
Security officials reportedly gave an "urgent, classified briefing" to Liberal Party officials three weeks before the federal election in 2019, "warning them that one of their candidates was part of a Chinese foreign interference network"—referring to Han Dong—but it was ignored by the Liberal Party.
Interference during the 2019 election The plot to infiltrate the 2019 election was made public through an investigative report by Global News, on November 7, 2022.
Unconfirmed, anonymous sources for the report stated that gathered intelligence suggested that a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) proxy group mobilized around CA$250,000 to fund the infiltration network through a staffer for an election candidate and a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, who both acted as intermediaries. Recipients of the donations allegedly included at least 11 candidates and members of their campaign staff, 13 or more federal aides, an Ontario MPP, and unelected public officials according to a January 2022 Privy Council Office (PCO) "Special Report". The PCO "Special Report" was prepared from information derived from 100 Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) documents. The sources also said that the candidates were members of Canada's two main political parties (the Liberal Party of Canada and Conservative Party of Canada), and that some of them were “witting affiliates of the Chinese Communist Party.”
On February 24, 2023, Global News reported that its intelligence sources with knowledge of CSIS affairs reported that Dong was an alleged "witting affiliate" in China's election interference networks. Sources state that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and senior Liberal party officials ignored CSIS warnings about Dong, which has been denied by Trudeau.
The same article also stated that a "Liberal insider" and former Ontario MPP Michael Chan had possibly arranged Geng Tan's ouster in Don Valley North in favour of Dong in advance of the 2019 federal election because the CCP was unhappy with Tan. Chan, Dong, and the Chinese embassy denied the accusations, with Dong describing the leaks as "seriously inaccurate". Dong and the Liberal Party also said that his 2019 nomination victory had followed all of the party's rules. According to an anonymous intelligence official and intelligence documents viewed by Global News, CSIS had also been investigating Dong due to an alleged meeting between Dong and a senior official from the CCP's United Front Work Department in New York state.
Dong has denied the allegations made against him, saying his 2019 nomination was "open and followed the rules" and that he was not a witting affiliate. In March 2023, he said that he was yet to be contacted by the RCMP, Elections Canada, or CSIS concerning the allegations, and that he wanted the truth to come out.
In March 2023, Global News reported that Vincent Ke was the Ontario MPP alleged to have served as a financial intermediary for the Chinese consulate as part of election interference efforts. On the same day, Ke denied the allegations and resigned from his role as parliamentary secretary and from the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario caucus, to sit as an independent. The office of the Premier of Ontario had received a CSIS briefing about Ke in November 2022. In April 2023, Ke said that he had served Global News with a libel notice concerning their reporting about him.
Interference during the 2021 election
One year following the 2021 Canadian federal election, Conservative Party politicians, including former leader Erin O'Toole, blamed Chinese government interference as a contributing factor to the Party's loss. In a 2022 interview on the UnCommons podcast with Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, O'Toole opined that PRC media outlets could have cost the Conservatives up to "eight or nine seats". The Conservative Party believes that their candidates were targeted by foreign interference in 13 federal ridings. The Conservative party was regularly briefed by CSIS on foreign interference during the 2021 election campaign. The party believes that foreign influence included foreign government-paid campaign workers, illegal advertising, and manipulation and misinformation on social media, including WeChat and Weibo.
O'Toole's beliefs were supported by Conservative MP and foreign affairs critic Michael Chong, who stated that while the party was initially hesitant to blame China for influencing the vote due to inconclusive evidence at the time, he now believed, "The communist leadership in Beijing did interfere in the last federal election by spreading disinformation through proxies on Chinese-language social media platforms that contributed to the defeat of a number of Conservative MPs", citing a report by McGill University. Similar views were shared by O'Toole's director of parliamentary affairs Mitch Heimpel, who said that Canadian national security officers had contacted the Conservatives around election day to express concerns about potential foreign interference. Heimpel also cited the example of former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu who had been targeted by a disinformation campaign on the Chinese social media platform WeChat. Research into electoral interference by McGill University indicated that there was no specific data to draw a full conclusion on the impact of potential interference and noted, "Canadian-Chinese issues were not central to the campaign, nor were they top of mind for voters" but concurred that researchers had found Chinese state media had worked "with an apparent aim to convince Canadians of Chinese origin to vote against the Conservative Party".
In February 2023, The Globe and Mail published a series of articles, reporting that CSIS, in several classified documents, advised that China had employed disinformation campaigns and undisclosed donations to support preferred candidates, all with the aim of ensuring that the Liberals would win again, but only with a minority. Other illegal tactics under the Canada Elections Act were also alleged, such as directing international students to work for preferred candidates (ostensibly as volunteers, but being paid by sympathetic business owners), and arranging for sympathetic donors to contribute to such campaigns, with the difference between their payments and the resulting tax credits being returned to them. The Procedure and House Affairs Committee of the House of Commons met to discuss these reports, and voted to expand their current inquiry into the 2019 election to include the 2021 election as well.