Parliament is set to rise for the summer in a few weeks — but the contentious debate over foreign interference is likely to continue.
Despite facing calls to step aside, David Johnston — tasked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau back in March with looking into allegations that China tried to meddle in the past two federal elections — has said he plans to continue his work.
Johnston will be holding a series of public hearings over the summer. He’ll face MPs’ questions when he appears before a House committee Tuesday morning.
The allegations
Citing unnamed national security sources, the Globe and Mail and Global News have reported that Beijing has deployed operations meant to influence and interfere in Canadian politics — including the 2019 and 2021 elections.
Those operations allegedly have included attempts to intimidate and influence members of Parliament and fund political candidates, and the operation of so-called “police stations” across Canada meant to intimidate dissidents and members of Chinese diaspora communities.
The Globe also reported that a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) document stated that Beijing attempted to orchestrate the election of a Liberal minority government in 2021.
Liberal MP Han Dong speaks to reporters on Parliament Hill on March 21, 2023. (Chris Rands/CBC)
In March, Global published a story alleging that former Liberal MP Han Dong — who is currently sitting as an Independent — advised a senior Chinese diplomat in February 2021 that Beijing should hold off on freeing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the two Canadians being held by China at the time. Dong has refuted those claims and is suing Global for $15 million.
The Globe, citing a top secret document from 2021, also reported last month that the Chinese government was targeting a Canadian MP. An unnamed security source reportedly told the Globe that Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei was allegedly working on efforts to target Conservative MP Michael Chong’s family in China.
In his first report, released last month, Johnston disputed Global’s reporting on Dong and the Globe’s report on Beijing working to ensure a Liberal minority in 2021. He said those media reports misconstrued top-secret intelligence because it lacked a broader context. Johnston also said that additional context could not be shared publicly.
Johnston reported he did find evidence that Chinese officials contemplated taking unspecified action against Chong and sought to build a profile on him, although there’s no evidence they threatened either Chong or his family.
The MPs affected
CSIS has briefed two other MPs about foreign interference.
Both former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and NDP MP Jenny Kwan said last week that CSIS has informed them they’ve been targeted by Beijing.
O’Toole told the House of Commons that CSIS informed him that he has been an ongoing target of a Chinese government campaign of misinformation and “voter suppression” that covered the last federal election campaign.
Conservative MP Erin O’Toole spoke about the briefing he received from CSIS after he was told he was the target of foreign interference during the last election.
Kwan told reporters Monday that CSIS told her she is an “evergreen” target of Beijing. Both O’Toole and Kwan said China’s government is singling them out over their vocal support for democracy in Hong Kong and for religious and cultural minorities in China.
Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu has blamed Beijing’s alleged election meddling for losing his seat in the 2021 election. He claims he was the target of propaganda and disinformation on WeChat — a Chinese-owned messaging app — that falsely claimed his private members’ bill would unfairly target the Chinese community.
Chiu’s bill actually proposed to establish a foreign agent registry that would require non-elected individuals to declare when they receive money from foreign governments.
Chiu was critical of Johnston’s first report. He said it didn’t consult diaspora communities affected by foreign interference — something Johnston has promised to do during his public hearings taking place this summer.
Chinese Canadians say they don’t need public hearings to tell them what they already know
Cherie Wong, Executive Director of Alliance Canada Hong Kong talks to Power and Politics about her organization’s newest report detailing foreign election interference in Canada.
“We can’t wait for a 12 to 16 month process to tell us something that we already know,” Cherie Wong, executive director of the Alliance Canada Hong Kong (ACHK), told CBC News Network’s Power & Politics last week.
Wong said members of the Chinese-Canadian community feel they have been talking about foreign interference for years without government action. She pointed out that her organization released reports on foreign interference in 2020, 2021 and this year.
“We don’t need another person to tell us there’s foreign interference. We don’t need another person to study the tactics. We have studied it and we have presented it in this beautiful report,” Wong told CBC’s David Cochrane.
Johnston’s first report
In his report, Johnston did conclude that foreign governments are attempting to influence political candidates and voters, and that more needs to be done to combat these attempts. But the former governor general ultimately advised against calling a formal public inquiry to investigate foreign interference, triggering outrage among opposition parties.
Johnston suggested that a formal public inquiry would not serve to investigate allegations of foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections because much of the classified information he has reviewed would need to remain secret.
While much of the public attention has been focused on Johnston’s decision not to call for an inquiry and his personal connections to the prime minister, he did flag issues with intelligence.
Specifically, Johnston criticized the way intelligence agencies, including CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), share intelligence with the federal government.
“The materials are disseminated, but no one keeps track of who specifically received or read them,” Johnston wrote in his report. “This means there can be intelligence that is ‘sent’ to various consumers, but it does not always actually get consumed.”
Johnston said staff at the Prime Minister’s Office told him they’re given a large binder in a secure room to review secret material, with no ability to take notes for security reasons.
Jody Thomas, national security and intelligence adviser to the prime minister, waits to appear as a witness before the standing committee on procedure and House affairs (PROC) on June 1, 2023. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)
Johnston said that binder covers a range of intelligence topics from around the world and no one tells PMO staff to concentrate on one topic or another. If staffers are away, he said, they may not see the binder that day.
Johnston said he also found evidence that Chinese officials contemplated taking unspecified action against Chong in 2021 and sought to build a profile on him. Testifying before a House committee last week, Trudeau’s national security adviser Jody Thomas said there has been a “breakdown” in how intelligence is shared in the government and used Chong’s case as an example.
Thomas said CSIS sent a memo in July 2021 to three deputy ministers across government, but the message effectively went into a “black hole.”
How much is Johnston being paid?
Johnston is receiving a per diem in the range of $1,400 to $1,600, according to the Order in Council that announced his appointment.
In 2017, the government set up the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), a bipartisan assembly of MPs and senators who are sworn to secrecy in order to receive top-secret briefings.
Trudeau has asked the committee to look into foreign interference. Their classified reports are sent to the prime minister before a redacted version is made public.
During a committee appearance last month, Chong called for NSICOP to be brought under the purview of Parliament so it can be answerable to the House, rather than the prime minister.
The government established the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol in 2019 to monitor and alert the public to credible threats to Canada’s elections. The team is a panel of top public servants tasked with determining whether incidents of interference meet the threshold for warning the public.
A report reviewing that task force’s work was released in February. It said that interference didn’t affect the outcome of the 2021 vote. But it did recommend that the government lower the threshold for alerting the public to potential interference attempts.
The government also established the Security and Intelligence Threats (SITE) task force in 2019, a body consisting of representatives of Canada’s top security agencies. SITE has met regularly since 2019 and now meets on a monthly basis; its meeting become more frequent as elections draw near.
During his speech last week in the House, O’Toole criticized both task forces for failing to tell him he was a target.
Zhao Wei was expelled from Canada after reportedly playing a role in attempts to gather information on MP Michael Chong’s family in Hong Kong in 2021. (Easy Media/Easyca.ca)
Under a foreign agent registry, people who act on behalf of a foreign state to advance its goals would have to disclose their ties to the government employing them.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – An incumbent BC United legislative member has reversed her decision not to seek re-election and has announced she’ll run as an Independent in the riding of West Vancouver-Capilano in the upcoming British Columbia election.
Karin Kirkpatrick has been a vocal critic of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon’s decision last month to suspend the party’s campaign and throw support behind the B.C. Conservatives under John Rustad.
Kirkpatrick announced her retirement this year, but said Monday that her decision to re-enter the race comes as a direct result of Falcon’s actions, which would force middle-of-the-road voters to “swing to the left” to the NDP or to move further right to the Conservatives.
“I did hear from a lot of constituents and a lot of people who were emailing me from across B.C. … that they didn’t have anybody to vote for,” she said. “And so, I looked even at myself, and I looked at my riding, and I said, ‘Well, I no longer have anybody to vote for in my own riding.’ It was clearly an issue of this missing middle for the more moderate voter.”
She said voters who reached out “don’t want to vote for an NDP government but felt deeply uncomfortable” supporting the provincial Conservatives, citing Rustad’s tolerance of what she calls “extreme views and conspiracy theorists.”
Kirkpatrick joins four other incumbent Opposition MLAs running as Independents, including Peace River South’s Mike Bernier, Peace River North’s Dan Davies, Prince George-Cariboo’s Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka in Kootenay-Rockies.
“To be honest, we talk just about every day,” Kirkpatrick said about her fellow BC United incumbents now running as Independents. “We’re all feeling the same way. We all need to kind of hold each other up and make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
She added that a number of first-time candidates formerly on the BC United ticket are contacting the group of incumbents running for election, and the group is working together “as good moderates who respect each other and lift each other up.”
But Kirkpatrick said it’s also too early to talk about the future of BC United or the possibility of forming a new party.
“The first thing we need to do is to get these Independent MLAs elected into the legislature,” she said, noting a strong group could play a power-broker role if a minority government is elected. “Once we’re there then we’re all going to come together and we’re going to figure out, is there something left in BC United, BC Liberals that we can resurrect, or do we need to start a new party that’s in the centre?”
She said there’s a big gap left in the political spectrum in the province.
“So, we just have to do it in a mindful way, to make sure it’s representing the broadest base of people in B.C.”
Among the supporters at Kirkpatrick’s announcement Monday was former longtime MLA Ralph Sultan, who held West Vancouver-Capilano for almost two decades before retiring in 2020.
The Metro Vancouver riding has been a stronghold for the BC Liberals — the former BC United — since its formation in 1991, with more than half of the votes going to the centre-right party in every contest.
However, Kirkpatrick’s winning margin of 53.6 per cent to the NDP’s 30.1 per cent and the Green’s 15.4 per cent in the 2020 election shows a rising trend for left-leaning voters in the district.
Mike McDonald, chief strategy officer with Kirk and Co. Consulting, and a former campaign director for the BC Liberals and chief of staff under former Premier Christy Clark, said Independent candidates historically face an uphill battle and the biggest impact may be splitting votes in areas where the NDP could emerge victorious.
“It really comes down to, if the NDP are in a position to get 33 per cent of the vote, they might have a chance of winning,” McDonald said of the impact of an Independent vote-split with the Conservatives in certain ridings.
He said B.C. history shows it’s very hard for an Independent to win an election and has been done only a handful of times.
“So, the odds do not favour Independents winning the seats unless there is a very unique combination of circumstances, and more likely that they play a role as a spoiler, frankly.”
The B.C. Conservatives list West Vancouver School District Trustee Lynne Block as its candidate in West Vancouver-Capilano, while the BC NDP is represented by health care professional Sara Eftekhar.
Kirkpatrick said she is confident that her re-entry to the race will not result in a vote split that allows the NDP to win the seat because the party has always had a poor showing in the riding.
“So, even if there is competition between myself and the Conservative candidate, it is highly unlikely that anything would swing over to the NDP here. And I believe that I have the ability to actually attract those NDP voters to me, as well as the Conservatives and Liberals who are feeling just lost right now.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt on Tuesday for his 10th trip to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began nearly a year ago, this one aimed partly at refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire deal and release of hostages.
Unlike in recent mediating missions, America’s top diplomat this time is traveling without optimistic projections from the Biden administration of an expected breakthrough in the troubled negotiations.
Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip. The Israeli leader’s fiery public statements — like his declaration that Israel would accept only “total victory” when Blinken was in the region in June — and some other unbudgeable demands have complicated earlier diplomacy.
Blinken is going to Egypt for talks Wednesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and others, in a trip billed as focused both on American-Egyptian relations and Gaza consultations with Egypt.
The tamped-down public approach follows months in which President Joe Biden and his officials publicly talked up an agreement to end the war in Gaza as being just within reach, hoping to build pressure on Netanyahu’s far-right government and Hamas to seal a deal.
The Biden administration now says it is working with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised final proposal to try to at least get Israel and Hamas into a six-week cease-fire that would free some of the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Americans believe public attention on details of the talks now would only hurt that effort.
American, Qatari and Egyptian officials still are consulting “about what that proposal will contain, and …. we’re trying to see that it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.
The State Department pointed to Egypt’s important role in Gaza peace efforts in announcing last week that the Biden administration planned to give the country its full $1.3 billion in military aid, overriding congressional requirements that the U.S. hold back some of the funding if Egypt fails to show adequate progress on human rights. Blinken told Congress that Egypt has made progress on human rights, including in freeing political prisoners.
Blinken’s trip comes amid the risk of a full-on new front in the Middle East, with Israel threatening increasing military action against the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon. Biden envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday to try to calm tensions after a stop in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East, and like Hamas and smaller groups in Syria and Iraq it is allied with Iran.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged strikes across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas started the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will ease those strikes — which have uprooted tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border — only when there’s a cease-fire in Gaza.
Hochstein told Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help get Israelis back in their homes, according to a U.S. official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said Hochstein stressed to Netanyahu that he risked sparking a broad and protracted regional conflict if he moved forward with a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Hochstein also underscored to Israeli officials that the Biden administration remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the tensions on Israel’s northern border in conjunction with a Gaza deal or on its own, the official said.
Netanyahu told Hochstein that it would “not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.” The prime minister said Israel “appreciates and respects” U.S. support but “will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, warned in his meeting with Hochstein that “the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action,” his office said.
In Gaza, the U.S. says Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal in principle and that the biggest obstacles now include a disagreement on details of the hostage and prisoner swap and control over a buffer zone on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Netanyahu has demanded in recent weeks that the Israeli military be allowed to keep a presence in the Philadelphi corridor. Egypt and Hamas have rejected that demand.
The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Militants also abducted 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. About a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, said Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, displaced a majority of Gaza’s people and created a humanitarian crisis.
Netanyahu says he is working to bring home the hostages. His critics accuse him of slow-rolling a deal because it could bring down his hardline coalition government, which includes members opposed to a truce with the Palestinians.
Asked earlier this month if Netanyahu was doing enough for a cease-fire deal, Biden said, simply, “no.” But he added that he still believed a deal was close.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
