House of Commons committee will probe China’s alleged interference in 2019 election

Global News reported last Monday that Canadian intelligence officials warned Trudeau that China has allegedly been targeting Canada with a vast campaign of foreign interference.

Members of Parliament have agreed to probe allegations that China covertly funded 2019 election candidates in an attempted campaign of foreign influence.

The decision comes after Global News reported last Monday that Canadian intelligence officials warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that China has allegedly been targeting Canada with a vast campaign of foreign interference, which included funding a clandestine network of at least 11 federal candidates running in the 2019 election.

“The briefings from CSIS are alarming in terms of the sophisticated campaign by the Chinese communist regime to subvert Canadian democracy,” said Conservative MP Michael Cooper, who tabled the motion on Monday.

“This interference is simply intolerable. It is unacceptable. Canadians and Canadians alone ought to decide the outcomes of elections, free of foreign interference and free of this kind of corruption that is being advanced by the Chinese communist regime with witting and unwitting actors, according to the brief.”

The motion called on the procedure and House affairs committee to extend its ongoing study of foreign election interference by four meetings, which Cooper said would allow it to “investigate” the allegations in the Global News report.

As part of this study, the committee will recall witnesses it has already heard from in its ongoing probe, including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Elections Canada and the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force.

It will also call Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic Leblanc, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and the current national security adviser to the prime minister to testify.

The motion also ordered the production of several documents — briefing notes, memorandums and documents — which would have been presented to the prime minister and his cabinet about the allegations of foreign interference from the Chinese Communist Party.