Political parties weren’t warned about Chinese foreign interference in 2021 election, inquiry hears

Walied Soliman appears virtually as a witness at the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions in Ottawa on April 2, 2024.A group of senior bureaucrats responsible for oversight of the 2021 federal election never shared critical information about Chinese state interference aimed at electing sympathetic MPs and targeting Conservative candidates, the public inquiry into foreign interference heard Tuesday.

The document, titled “SITE briefing to secret cleared federal political parties,” went to say China “covertly directs financial and voting support for favourable candidates” who are viewed as pro-China or do not “openly oppose viewpoints important to the PRC.” “If there was any sense that there was going to be activity by the People’s Republic of China against Parliament and certain MPs and interference in certain ridings, it would have been useful to know that,” Ms. McGrath said.

Halfway through the election, Mr. Soliman said the party started “getting information on a few targeted ridings where there seemed to be campaigns of misinformation that appeared to be advanced by actors that the local campaigns couldn’t identify.” On Monday night, Mr. Soliman was shown a document written by then-Privy Council clerk Ian Shugart, who sat on SITE, that dismissed the Conservative complaints, saying they were just unhappy that they lost.

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