O'Toole claims Chinese interference in 2021 election flipped Tory ridings — but experts urge caution

Former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole claims foreign interference from China in the last election cost his party seats. But some media and national security experts are pushing back, arguing that it's difficult to conclusively prove interference and that any intervention was unlikely to have been so decisive.

O'Toole made the comments about China's state influence during an interview on CBC's The House, which aired Saturday. He told host Chris Hall that while the level of interference he's describing would not have changed the overall outcome of the election, it had an effect in several key areas, including B.C.'s lower mainland and some Toronto ridings.

When asked for evidence that the interference was decisive, O'Toole cited his party's internal review of the election but did not share further details. The Conservatives did not reply to a request for comment about O'Toole's allegations or provide further evidence backing up the claim. 

Earlier this month, the party told news outlet Politico it had nothing to add on the subject.

O'Toole spoke specifically about the platform WeChat, a social media and messaging app developed by the Chinese multinational Tencent. He said misinformation about the Conservatives spread on the platform and turned many voters against Conservatives.

Some of it amounted to "voter suppression," he said. "People were worried about appearing on a voters' list as having voted if a Conservative won."

O'Toole said his campaign had been in touch with CSIS before and during the campaign over the issue of interference and he had asked the national intelligence agency to make public what they know.

CSIS declined to comment on this story, referring instead to a statement sent to CBC News earlier in the month. In that  an agency spokesperson pointed to a task force set up to monitor interference, which has made no public announcements related to the election. The threshold for an announcement is whether there is a substantial threat to "a free and fair election," according to national security policy.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa did not respond to a request for comment. Asked in December about its activities in relation to Huawei, ambassador Cong Peiwu denied China engaged in espionage.

"China, we don't do this kind of thing, you know, spying, or electronic monitoring. It is the United States that have been doing these kinds of things over the past decades," he said.

O'Toole emphasized the level of interference he's describing would not have changed the overall outcome of the election. But he told Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith in a podcast it had proved decisive in as many as nine ridings. Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, for instance, has argued misinformation played a role in his loss.

O'Toole also said he hadn't been more outspoken about this issue because he believed CSIS would alert the public, and that he didn't want it to look like "sour grapes."

"We should be demanding a better defence against this interference in the next federal election."

But some experts are skeptical that interference was as co-ordinated and decisive as O'Toole suggests. The Media Ecosystem Observatory, a joint project between the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University and the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, published a report in March on the issue of misinformation in 2021.