The World Briefly

April 11, 2024

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Canada

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Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the country’s last two general elections were “free and fair” on Wednesday, in a public inquiry into accusations of foreign interference in the elections – including Chinese and Indian meddling, the BBC reported.

Quebec judge Marie-Josée Hogue is probing the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, both of which were won by Trudeau’s Liberal Party, and has heard accusations laid by Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Trudeau said the CSIS had made him “aware” of evidence about the allegations, but it “still needs to be confirmed”. “Irregularities being observed are not enough to overturn a democratic event,” he said.

China and India have denied the allegations, with New Delhi calling them “baseless.” The CSIS said the reports had to be taken with a pinch of salt, as some of the contents relied on single sources and were not duly investigated. There is no evidence the alleged meddling affected the final election results, the BBC said.

Even so, the CSIS accused the Chinese government of “clandestinely and deceptively” leading a “pragmatic” interference campaign focusing on securing the election of pro-Beijing politicians.

Accusations included a possible $184,000 transfer to an unnamed candidate’s staff member and funding a charter bus for Chinese high school students to help appoint then-Liberal Han Dong as a candidate for the 2019 election. The CSIS said the teenagers were threatened with student visa suspensions and consequences for their families back home.

Meanwhile, the spy agency alleged India used proxies among Canada’s 1.4-million strong Indian diaspora to boost candidates aligned with “India’s interests on key issues,” such as its opposition to a Sikh separatist movement in an Indian territory known as Khalistan, Al Jazeera reported.

Focusing on electoral districts home to large diaspora communities, India allegedly relied on “Canada-based proxies” to “obfuscate any explicit link” with its government.

The CSIS accusations came amid tensions between Canada and India over the killing of a Sikh activist in Vancouver last year.

In a separate document, the agency called Pakistan a “limited foreign interference actor” that carried out efforts for voters to favor politicians deemed pro-Pakistan or anti-India. Pakistan has not yet responded to the accusations.

The CSIS and other stakeholders criticized the Canadian government for not doing enough to combat foreign meddling. Last week, Trudeau said he considered the issue “extremely important.”

This story originally appeared in the April 11, 2024 newsletter, Stuck in Celestial Hades.