Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who won both elections as the Liberal Party candidate, set up a commission to investigate foreign interference, following pressure by opposition MPs unhappy with media reports on China's possible role.
On April 8, the commission was shown a slide containing an excerpt from a February 2023 CSIS briefing, that proved "the PRC (People's Republic of China) covertly and deceptively interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 elections."
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"In both cases, these FI (foreign interference) activities were pragmatic in nature and focused primarily on supporting those viewed to be either 'pro-PRC' or 'neutral' on issues of interest to the PRC government," it said.
Chinese interference cost the opposition Conservative party as many as nine seats, said then-party leader, Erin O'Toole, though he admitted that this interference likely did not change the course of the election.
Critics argue that the Trudeau government has not done enough to combat Chinese interference, and Trudeau himself is scheduled to testify before the commission on April 10.
A left-leaning New Democrats minority lawmaker told Reuters that once she started criticizing Beijing's Hong Kong policy, invitations to events held by the politically influential ethnic Chinese community started to dry up.
The Conservatives, who typically take a harder line on China, campaigned in 2021 on a platform condemning Beijing's treatment of the Uighur minority and promising to ban Chinese mobile giant Huawei from Canada's 5G network.
Canada is home to 1.7 million people of Chinese descent, according to the official 2021 census, making up roughly 5% of the total population.
Last year, Canada said that a Conservative lawmaker, who has family in Hong Kong, became the target of an online disinformation operation. In response, Canada expelled a senior Chinese diplomat.
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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Section: Nation
Author: Андрій Журба
