A parliamentary committee is set to decide whether or not it will expand its current study on foreign election interference to include more details about the 2021 federal election.
The meeting Tuesday comes in response to a report last week from the Globe and Mail newspaper that said China worked in the last federal election to defeat Conservative politicians considered unfriendly to Beijing and to help ensure a Liberal minority government.
The House of Commons procedure and House affairs committee will meet Tuesday afternoon at the request of opposition members of Parliament.
In a letter to the Liberal committee chair, Conservative, NDP and Bloc Québécois MPs said they want to discuss the report’s “shocking revelations,” which were attributed to classified records from Canada’s spy agency.
The letter said the committee should “address the deeply troubling reports of Beijing’s interference in our democracy” and look at how it can “expand the scope of its current study into this matter.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week that Canadian voters alone decided the last federal election, playing down the suggestion that China tried to unduly sway the outcome.
The committee has been studying foreign interference in the 2019 federal election since November.
Its members have already questioned witnesses from the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Elections Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 21, 2023.
