Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 6.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Foreign interference has dominated the headlines again since The Globe and Mail reported on Feb. 17 details of China’s sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada’s democracy in the 2021 federal election campaign, based on secret and top-secret CSIS documents.
After nearly a year of revelations and and immense public pressure, the federal government established the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference to examine allegations that foreign countries such as China and India interfered in the 2019 and 2021 elections. The first phase of public hearings, which ran from March 27 to April 12, heard from many high-ranking officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The Foreign Interference Commission, headed by Quebec Superior Court Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, released the first report on May 3, concluding that foreign interference was a “stain” on the 2019 and 2021 federal elections and China is the main perpetrator.
How did China try to influence Canadian elections? Here’s a timeline of how the events have unfolded.
May 6, 2022
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service building in Ottawa.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) says in its 2021 annual report that foreign interference threats accelerated in 2021.
The spy agency said efforts by foreign states to steal intellectual property from Canadian researchers and companies were “persistent and sophisticated” and contributed to a “mounting toll on the country’s vital assets and knowledge-based economy.”
It warned that foreign interference threats in Canada – to shape public policy or harass dissidents – as well as espionage “increased in scale, scope and complexity” in 2021.
Oct. 21, 2022
Canada’s Innovation Minister says he believes there’s a Western consensus forming to decouple from, or reduce trade with, China and other authoritarian countries. François-Philippe Champagne, speaking before a business audience in Washington at a “fireside chat” event sponsored by groups including the Canadian embassy, the Canadian American Business Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is the second federal cabinet minister to talk publicly about decreasing trade with countries such as China and Russia.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, speaking in Washington on Oct. 11, also talked of the need to embrace policies that shift trade to friendly partners and like-minded democracies: a “friend-shoring” approach that would reduce commercial relations with adversarial countries.
Oct. 27, 2022
A recently unsealed indictment in the United States alleges that Beijing’s overseas campaign to put pressure on Chinese nationals to return and face criminal charges in China includes enforcement efforts on Canadian soil.
These U.S. accusations have come to light about six weeks after Spain-based human-rights group Safeguard Defenders alleged that three of China’s more than 50 overseas police stations are operating in Toronto. China’s embassy in Canada has denied this.
Nov. 3, 2022
The embassy of the People's Republic of China in Ottawa.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
A senior official at Canada’s spy agency tells members of Parliament that China is the “foremost aggressor” when it comes to foreign interference in Western countries and “works within” their political systems “to corrupt” them.
Adam Fisher, CSIS director-general of intelligence assessments, says to a House of Commons committee investigation into foreign interference in elections that Russia and China “tend to be the two big players” – though they differ in their methods.
Moscow, Mr. Fisher said, tends to employ methods that erode confidence in Western political systems. “Russia is more inclined toward disrupting and undermining our system of government through messaging that casts what is happening in some doubt.” Beijing, on the other hand, prefers to work its way into Western political systems, he said.
Nov. 7, 2022
A report from Global News indicates that CSIS warned the Prime Minister that China has been targeting Canada with a foreign-interference campaign, including allegedly providing cash for 11 federal candidates in the 2019 election.
Mr. Trudeau later said this was incorrect – that he had never been briefed on this. National-security adviser Jody Thomas also said there was no evidence of money going to candidates. She told a parliamentary committee in December “that we have not seen money going to 11 candidates, period.”
Nov. 15, 2022
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 Leaders Summit in Bali, Indonesia.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
At the G20 summit in Indonesia, Mr. Trudeau approaches President Xi Jinping with serious concerns about China’s alleged interference in Canada. Mr. Xi later berated the Prime Minister for releasing what he considered to be a private conversation.
Nov. 26, 2022
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly unveils a long-awaited Indo-Pacific strategy that promises to bolster the ability of national-security agencies to combat foreign influence in the region and in Canadian affairs.
Ottawa will provide nearly $230-million over the next five years to expand the capacity of Canadian intelligence and cybersecurity agencies to work closely with partners in the Indo-Pacific region and protect “Canadians from attempts by foreign states to influence them covertly or coercively,” according to the national-security chapter provided to The Globe and Mail.
Nov. 28, 2022
Commissioner Brenda Lucki says the RCMP is investigating broad foreign interference by China in Canadian affairs but declines to detail precisely what type of activities are being probed by the federal police force.
Nov. 29, 2022
The Globe reports that the Prime Minister said he’s never received any intelligence that China allegedly funded federal candidates in the 2019 election, but sidestepped repeated questions about whether he was ever informed of efforts by Beijing to interfere in Canadian elections or domestic politics.
Dec. 21, 2022
Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director David Vigneault makes his way to the Procedure and House Affairs committee on Parliament Hill.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The Globe reports that the Prime Minister received a national-security briefing during the fall in which he was told China’s consulate in Toronto had targeted 11 candidates – nine Liberals and two Conservatives – in the 2019 federal election.
CSIS Director David Vigneault told Mr. Trudeau there was no indication that China’s interference efforts had helped elect any of the candidates, despite the consulate’s attempts to promote the campaigns on social media and in Chinese-language media outlets.
Jan. 30, 2023
The Globe reports that Canadian universities have for years conducted joint research with Chinese military scientists on hundreds of advanced-technology research projects.
Researchers at 50 Canadian universities have collaborated with and published joint scientific papers with scientists connected to China’s military, generating knowledge that can help drive China’s defence sector in cutting-edge, high-tech industries.
Feb. 14, 2023
Ottawa announces it will no longer fund research with Chinese military and state-security institutions and is urging the provinces and universities to adopt similar national-security measures.
Feb. 17, 2023
An arrow points to where people can go to cast their ballots on federal election day in Montreal, on Sept. 20, 2021.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
The Globe reports, based on CSIS documents, that China employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada’s democracy in the 2021 election campaign.
The CSIS documents reveal that the campaign’s primary goals were to ensure that a minority Liberal government was returned in 2021 and to defeat Conservative politicians considered to be unfriendly to Beijing.
Opinion: Why I blew the whistle on Chinese interference in Canada’s elections
Feb. 18, 2023
Secret and top-secret CSIS documents viewed by The Globe reveal how China sought to protect its network of “Canadian friends” – a community it relies on to build relations, influence and covertly gather information from MPs and senators.
Chinese diplomats quietly issued warnings to “friendly” influential Canadians in early 2022, advising them to reduce their contact with federal politicians to avoid being caught up in foreign-interference investigations by Canada’s spy agency.
Feb. 20, 2023
Highly classified CSIS documents seen by The Globe paint a picture of a broad Chinese strategy to interfere in Canada’s democracy and gain influence over politicians, corporate executives, academics and vulnerable Chinese Canadians.
The documents reveal that China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses three colour-coded “political-interference tactics” to gain influence over Canadians here and those travelling to China:
- Blue refers to sophisticated cyberattacks on targets’ computers, smartphones and hotel rooms for possible blackmail;
- Gold refers to bribes;
- Yellow refers to what CSIS described as “honey pots” – how the CCP employs sexual seduction to compromise targets.
Feb. 20, 2023
A House of Commons committee probing Chinese interference in the 2019 federal election is recalled during Parliament’s scheduled two-week break to extend its mandate to include the 2021 campaign.
Feb. 21, 2023
A Globe report reveals that the Canadian military found and retrieved Chinese monitoring buoys in the Arctic this past fall. The buoys were spotted by the Canadian Armed Forces as part of Operation Limpid, a continuing effort to provide early detection of threats to Canada’s security.
Feb. 23, 2023
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks to the media in Hamilton, Ont.NICK IWANYSHYN/The Canadian Press
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland raises national-security concerns about Wealth One Bank of Canada, telling three of its founding shareholders that they could be susceptible to Chinese government coercion, according to a Globe investigation.
Feb. 26, 2023
Two former advisers to Mr. Trudeau, as well as NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, call for a non-partisan public inquiry into Chinese state-directed interference into the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. The Prime Minister ruled out a public inquiry a day earlier, saying he was satisfied with hearings being conducted by a parliamentary committee.
Feb. 28, 2023
The Globe reports that Chinese billionaire Zhang Bin pledged $200,000 in 2016 to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation after CSIS captured a conversation between him and an unnamed diplomat at one of China’s consulates in Canada.
March 1, 2023
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation says it returned the money from Mr. Zhang after a Globe report that the pledge was part of a Chinese-directed influence operation targeting the Prime Minister.
President and CEO Pascale Fournier said in a statement on its website that the foundation is returning $140,000 of a $200,000 pledge. The foundation received two payments of $70,000 each but never received the rest of the money, she said.
March 2, 2023
David Vigneault, the director of CSIS, says an investigation is under way to find the whistle-blowers who leaked highly classified information on Chinese election interference to The Globe and Global News.
Canadian and Chinese flags.POOL/AFP/Getty Images
A report based on the work of a panel of senior public servants determines that efforts to meddle in the 2021 federal election did not affect the outcome of the vote.
“National-security agencies saw attempts at foreign interference, but not enough to have met the threshold of impacting electoral integrity,” Morris Rosenberg, a former deputy minister of foreign affairs, wrote in the report for the federal government.
March 3, 2023
Opposition parties team up to pass a parliamentary committee motion calling for an independent probe into foreign interference. Liberal MPs on the procedure and House affairs committee opposed the motion but were outvoted by the Conservatives, New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois. The motion is non-binding.
March 6, 2023
Trudeau initiates two closed-door probes into Chinese election interference that will be reviewed by a special rapporteur. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians will study China’s interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections. The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency will examine how investigations into Chinese election meddling have been handled.
March 6, 2023
The RCMP announces that an investigation has begun into the intelligence leaks behind the media reports on foreign interference. The RCMP says it is looking into violations of the Security of Information Act and is not investigating the alleged interference itself.
March 7, 2023
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons.BLAIR GABLE/Reuters
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre accuses Mr. Trudeau of playing into China’s hands by refusing to hold a public inquiry on foreign interference.
“We want an open and independent public inquiry to get to the truth and make sure it never happens again,” he said during a news conference.
March 7, 2023
Liberal MPs mount a filibuster to stop the opposition from calling the Prime Minister’s chief of staff to testify before the House of Commons committee studying Beijing’s election meddling.
March 8, 2023
The Globe reports that Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly rejected a visa for a Chinese diplomat in the fall of 2022 on grounds of foreign interference.
The Globe also reported that China is trying to smooth relations with Canada. Wang Shouwen, a high-ranking Chinese official, led a delegation to Ottawa this week, where he met with senior figures including David Morrison, deputy minister of foreign affairs, as well as Rob Stewart, deputy minister of international trade. Mr. Wang is a senior Chinese Communist Party official at the Ministry of Commerce and serves as vice-minister of commerce as well as the China International Trade Representative.
The government declined to identify the officials Mr. Wang met with at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and at Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), which is in charge of vetting foreign takeovers.
March 13, 2023
The Globe reports that Beijing is using a “workaround strategy” for postgraduate researchers to study cutting-edge technology at Canadian and U.S. universities after Washington began denying visas for some Chinese students on the grounds that they might steal intellectual property with military uses, according to a CSIS report.
March 15, 2023
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tapped former governor general David Johnston to look into allegations that China meddled in Canada's two last elections.GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images
Mr. Trudeau announces that former governor-general David Johnston will take on the role of special rapporteur to review the findings of two closed-door panels that Ottawa set up to investigate Beijing’s interference activities in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
March 16, 2023
The Globe reports that China’s Vancouver consulate interfered in the 2022 municipal election, according to CSIS.
A January, 2022, CSIS report viewed by The Globe outlines how China’s then-consul-general, Tong Xiaoling, discussed “grooming” Chinese-Canadian municipal politicians for higher office to advance Beijing’s interests. Ms. Tong sought to elect pro-Beijing politicians to city council in the October, 2022, municipal election in which incumbent mayor Kennedy Stewart lost to Ken Sim by a margin of nearly 37,000 votes. Mr. Sim expressed outrage after the disclosure. “If I was a Caucasian male, we’re not having this conversation,” he said.
March 17, 2023
B.C. Premier David Eby says he was disturbed by secret documents describing Beijing’s efforts to interfere in Vancouver’s mayoral election and had requested a briefing with CSIS.
March 22, 2023
Toronto MP Han Dong announces he is leaving the federal Liberal caucus to sit as an independent shortly after Global News published a report that Mr. Dong privately advised a senior Chinese diplomat in February, 2021, that China should delay the release of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Mr. Dong has denied the allegations.
May 1, 2023
The Globe reports that Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei was part of efforts by the Chinese government to target Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family following his work in spearheading a 2021 parliamentary motion declaring that Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghurs constitutes genocide.
Mr. Trudeau said he had asked his officials to investigate a top-secret CSIS report seen by The Globe.
Conservative MP Michael Chong rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, May 4, 2023.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
May 2, 2023
In a meeting brokered by the Prime Minister, CSIS director David Vigneault tells Conservative MP Michael Chong that he and his family were targeted by the Chinese government after he sponsored a parliamentary motion in 2021 condemning Beijing’s conduct in Xinjiang as genocide. Mr. Trudeau, his national-security adviser Jody Thomas and Mr. Vigneault met in a West Block office on Parliament Hill.
May 3, 2023
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says CSIS made the decision not to inform MP Michael Chong in 2021 that he and his family were being targeted and said he didn’t know about the targeting of Mr. Chong until The Globe reported it on May 1. The spy agency’s explanation, he said, was that it didn’t send the report up the chain of authority because it felt this “wasn’t a significant enough concern.”
May 4, 2023
Conservative Michael Chong tells MPs that the Prime Minister’s national-security adviser informed him that the 2021 intelligence report about his family being targeted by China was circulated beyond CSIS. The report, he said, even reached the desk of the person serving as Mr. Trudeau’s national-security adviser at the time. This version of events contradict what the Prime Minister told reporters the day before.
Chinese diplomat Zhao WeiEasy Media
May 8, 2023
The federal government expels Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei for interfering in Canadian politics. In a statement, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Canada has “decided to declare persona non grata, Mr. Zhao Wei” and that the decision was taken after “careful consideration of all factors at play.”
May 9, 2023
China expels Canada’s Shanghai-based diplomat Jennifer Lynn Lalonde in a “reciprocal countermeasure” in response to Ottawa’s own “unscrupulous” expulsion of Mr. Zhao. Ms. Lalonde was told to leave the country by May 13.
May 12, 2023
CSIS says it is in the process of contacting a list of parliamentarians for briefings on Chinese political interference. The spy agency already reached out to two opposition MPs: former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, who was a candidate for prime minister in the 2021 election, and Jenny Kwan, an NDP MP who has been an outspoken critic of China.
May 23, 2023
David Johnston releases his first report after being asked by Mr. Trudeau in March to lead an investigation into Chinese interference, ruling out a public inquiry.
In his 55-page report, Mr. Johnston says that such interference is an “increasing threat to our democratic system” and China is “particularly active.” He concludes, however, that because intelligence about Beijing’s activities is highly classified, it could never be openly discussed with Canadians in a public inquiry.
The Prime Minister also says he will not call an independent public inquiry after Mr. Johnston’s recommendation.
May 31, 2023
A majority of MPs in the House of Commons vote for the removal of Mr. Johnston as special rapporteur and for Ottawa to set up an independent public inquiry instead. The non-binding NDP motion passes by a vote of 174 to 150, with all four opposition parties voting for the measures and Liberal MPs opposed.
June 7, 2023
A majority of Canadians would like the Liberal government to call a public inquiry into Chinese foreign interference, according to a poll. A Nanos Research survey, commissioned by The Globe and Mail and CTV News, also finds 72 per cent of Canadians polled say they would support a foreign-agent registry that requires people to disclose their work on behalf of a foreign state.
June 8, 2023
Mr. Johnston fires the crisis-communications firm Navigator after learning it also advised former Liberal MP Han Dong, whose conduct he scrutinized as part of his inquiry into Chinese foreign interference. Mr. Johnston’s office says it decided to end its relationship with Navigator after The Globe reached out to inquire about whether the firm had worked earlier this year for the Toronto MP.
June 9, 2023
Mr. Johnston resigns as the government’s beleaguered special rapporteur on Chinese state interference, citing the “highly partisan atmosphere” and urging Mr. Trudeau to appoint a respected Canadian with national-security experience to carry on the role.
The leaders of the Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and New Democrats, however, call on the Prime Minister to set up a public inquiry and to work with all parties to counter foreign interference.
June 13, 2023
The RCMP open an investigation into Beijing’s targeting of Conservative MP Michael Chong and his relatives.
June 26, 2023
Mr. Johnston files his final – and confidential – report on foreign interference to Mr. Trudeau, ending his contentious term as special rapporteur. The office of the independent special rapporteur said the document was a “supplement to the confidential annex” of his earlier report, meaning it will not be made public.
July 21, 2023
Retired RCMP officer William Majcher is charged with conducting foreign interference on behalf of China. Mr. Majcher, who has lived and worked in Hong Kong for years, allegedly “used his knowledge and his extensive network of contacts in Canada to obtain intelligence or services to benefit the People’s Republic of China,” the RCMP said in a statement.
Retired RCMP officer William Majcher was charged with conducting foreign interference on behalf of China.Supplied
Aug. 11, 2023
An organization representing retired Canadian spies says a foreign interference public inquiry must be given access to all cabinet documents and transcripts of discussions to determine whether Mr. Trudeau was ever informed of China’s attempts to meddle in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
Aug. 21, 2023
The RCMP say they believe the retired RCMP officer charged in July with conducting foreign interference on behalf of China was targeting a wealthy Vancouver real estate entrepreneur named Kevin Sun as part of his alleged activities for Beijing.
The RCMP believe Mr. Majcher used contacts and expertise to help the Chinese Ministry of Public Security in support of its Operation Fox Hunt and Operation SkyNet projects – efforts cast by Beijing as global anti-corruption campaigns but which Western security agencies say have also been used to target and silence dissidents.
Sept. 7, 2023
After months of negotiations with the opposition parties, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc announces that Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Marie-Josée Hogue has agreed to head a public inquiry into foreign interference.
An agreement is reached on the terms and timing of the long-awaited inquiry, with the first report on election interference due early in the new year and the final report at the end of 2024.
Jan. 24, 2024
Justice Marie-Josée Hogue says she asked for documents from the federal government involving any alleged interference by India during the 2019 and 2021 elections.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh had previously pushed for the inquiry to delve into the possibility that India may have acted in a similar manner as Beijing in seeking to influence the outcome of elections in certain ridings with large diaspora communities.
Neil Bisson, a former senior intelligence officer at CSIS, says it makes sense for the inquiry to look at what other countries, including India, have been doing behind the scenes to influence their diaspora communities in Canada.
Jan. 29, 2024
Preliminary hearings begin, focusing on deciding what information from classified documents and sources can and can’t be made public during the hearings and reports.
March 27, 2024
The inquiry into foreign interference begins two weeks of public hearings on meddling in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
April 10, 2024
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears as a witness at the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions in Ottawa.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testifies at the inquiry, questioning the reliability of intelligence gathered by CSIS about Beijing-directed influence operations.
“What I am saying, you have to take this intelligence, you have to take this information, with a certain awareness that it still needs to be confirmed or it might not be 100-per-cent accurate,” Mr. Trudeau testified.
The Prime Minister also discounts the effectiveness of Chinese election interference in his testimony, saying it would “seem very improbable that the Chinese government would have a preference for the government” of Canada. He notes that at the time the governing Liberals were in a tense relationship with Beijing over the imprisonment of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.
“Those elections held in their integrity – they were decided by Canadians,” Mr. Trudeau tells the inquiry of the 2019 and 2021 elections.
April 12, 2024
CSIS Director David Vigneault testifies for a second time, the first being on April 4. His testimony concludes the commission’s two weeks of public hearings, which heard from a list of high-ranking officials, diaspora groups and politicians targeted by China.
The commission is required to deliver a report on election interference by May 3.
A second round of public hearings in the fall will examine proposals to combat foreign interference. A final report from the commission on those proposals is due in late December.
May 3, 2024
Commissioner Justice Marie-Josee Hogue speaks about the first report following its release at the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference on May 3.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
China is the main perpetrator of foreign interference in Canada that poses a serious and growing threat to the country’s electoral system, concludes the first report from the foreign interference inquiry.
Justice Hogue concludes that foreign interference didn’t affect the overall election outcome but there is a “reasonable possibility” it affected riding-level results in a small number of cases. She also says that candidate nomination races are a “gateway” for foreign interference.
“Regardless of whether actual electoral results are affected, the problem of foreign interference is pervasive, insidious, and harmful to Canada’s democratic institutions,” she writes.
Five takeaways from the foreign-interference commission’s report
Justice Hogue also finds that elected officials are suspicious of information gathered by Canada’s intelligence agencies and suggested those officials “may prefer to refrain from acting when such information is brought to their attention.”
Her report does not weigh in on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his senior staff’s handling of the information they received and what actions they did or didn’t take in response.
With reports from Bill Curry, Robert Fife, Marieke Walsh and Nathan VanderKlippe
Steven Chase