Trudeau not briefed on some foreign interference concerns about 2021 election, inquiry hears
CBC
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not briefed in 2021 about possible foreign interference efforts targeting Liberal and Conservative candidates during the 2021 federal election, the Foreign Interference Commission heard Tuesday.
Janice Charette, who sat on a five-person panel tasked with determining if Canada's election was at risk in 2021, said Tuesday that she and the director of CSIS decided to brief the Liberal Party directly about foreign interference concerns during the 2021 election.
Charette said that that briefing, given on Sept. 12 2021, passed on classified information to the Liberal Party's representative to the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force.
Charette said Tuesday that the decision to brief the party was made by her and the CSIS director in an effort to "mitigate" possible efforts by China to interfere in the election. She said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not briefed by her or the Privy Council Office.
"I did not brief the prime minister on this, either during the election or after the election. And in fact I believe the first briefing of the prime minister took place not until 2023, by the Privy Council Office," Charette told the commission.
Charette also said no other branch of the public service briefed Trudeau on the 2021 issue, and she knew that because she was the point of contact for the prime minister.
"He may have had other briefings through the Liberal Party" that she didn't know about, she said.
The Chinese government has been accused of attempting to influence the results of the 2019 and 2021 federal elections and of meddling in Canada's affairs.
The Foreign Interference Commission inquiry, led by Quebec judge Marie-Josée Hogue, is hearing testimony from more than 40 people, including community members, political party representatives and federal election officials.
The commission is probing actions foreign states may have taken to interfere with those elections and the flow of information within the government about foreign interference efforts.
The panel of five Charette sat on in 2021 is a group of senior bureaucrats tasked with monitoring threats to elections and deciding whether to issue a public warning if they feel the electoral process is under threat from foreign interference.
Nathalie Drouin, who was deputy minister of justice and deputy attorney general during the 2019 federal election and a panel member at that time, told a commission hearing Monday that foreign interference concerns about the riding nomination contest in Don Valley North in 2019 were also conveyed directly to the party during the 2019 federal election.
The 2019 concerns involved international students being bused to the riding of Don Valley North to vote in the Liberal nomination contest, and financial allegations that were referred to the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
The Don Valley North riding race normally would have fallen outside the panel's remit, but in this case it overlapped with the 2019 federal election.
