Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2023

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Madam Chair, that wasn't the question I asked.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chiu. I asked you this very clearly. In 2015 you also lost an election. I'm asking if that was as a result of foreign interference, and then if in 2021 the foreign interference went away and then...or, sorry, in 2019 the foreign interference went away—

[Kenny Chiu]

You'd better get your facts straight.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

—and then in 2021 the foreign interference came back. Those are the facts. Those are the election results from 2015, 2019 and 2021.

[Kenny Chiu]

Well, yes, many members of the House of Commons, members of Parliament, have tried many times. For example, my colleague Alice Wong attempted it three times before she was able to get elected in the riding of Richmond. Therefore, you cannot blame foreign interference for everything. In fact, I did not experience foreign interference in 2015. I did not personally experience it in 2019. It doesn't preclude that it happened. That's why I was especially sensitive to the difference. Twenty-two months after the 2019 election there was a sea change. There were volunteers quitting, who were staying persona non grata, as if I was the persona non grata, and staying out of contact.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

I'm just going to remind Ms. O'Connell and Mr. Chiu that if we can't take turns, then we need to go through the chair. I know that Mr. Chiu, as somebody who has served in the House, knows the rules, as does Ms. O'Connell, who is serving in the House.

I would just remind us all to go through the chair if we're not going to be able to just have a conversation back and forth and take turns.

With that, I'll go to Madame Gaudreau.

Ms. Gaudreau, you have two and a half minutes.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Chair, my questions are for Mr. Chiu.

Certain things have been proven, and there is speculation as to whether certain allegations are true. Earlier I mentioned subversive tactics.

Right now, we need to determine whether an independent public inquiry is necessary to really get to the bottom of things. Otherwise, this discussion could go on and on. What do you think?

[Kenny Chiu]

Pardon me. Can you repeat the question? I didn't really get the question in there. I'm sorry about that.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Given what's happening right now, with all the grey areas and the fact that partisanship may be at play, do you think an independent public inquiry is more than necessary?

[Kenny Chiu]

Absolutely, because with the latest news that we have heard, every day and every other week, it is becoming more and more concerning for Canadians in general. I'm now just an ordinary Canadian.

The people I've come into contact with wonder what is happening, how come our government has not acted to protect Canada, has not been the sunshine that it talked about and has not been transparent to Canadians about what happened.

For example, Mr. Michael Chong indicated that the national security adviser told him that multiple MPs have been targeted by Zhao Wei, the employee of the Toronto consulate.

Who are the other MPs? Could it be one of them among us here? Could it be Ms. Jenny Kwan, the MP who was born in Hong Kong and who has relatives in Hong Kong? We don't know. The government refused to answer. We have only to live in continued fear.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I have one last question, Madam Chair.

Mr. Chiu, you said earlier that you weren't giving all the examples. You said this goes back more than 18 months, but are you afraid of reprisal?

[Kenny Chiu]

The simple answer is yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'll take that. Thank you.

Mrs. Blaney, you have two and a half minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

I have no questions for Mr. Chiu, but I would just ask him not to speak for other members of Parliament, because I can verify that some of the things he's said are incorrect. Maybe don't do that for other MPs.

Mr. Salvo, I would like to come back to you. In doing some research around the work that you do, I saw—hopefully I get this right—the authoritarian interference tracker, which is a really amazing tool. It gives a lot of information about interference and what kind of interference, and then there's a lot of information that explains it, so that if you were a civilian, you could look in there and understand what the type of interference was and what the implications are, and find information about how that works. I think it's really an amazing tool.

Could you talk a bit about that tool and how accessible it is? Is it something that a government like Canada's could get behind with a lot more focus?

The other thing that I want to note—maybe I'm just not good at using it, because I didn't spend a lot of time on it—is that there was nothing I could find that was past 2020. Is there a process that I'm missing in that system?

[David Salvo]

For those who don't know, the authoritarian interference tracker is an online tool we have, which maps and catalogues Russian and Chinese interference in the trans-Atlantic community, including Canada, since the year 2000. There are cases beyond 2020, but they may not be applicable to Canada. It is a living tool, so it is constantly being updated with new cases. Certainly, there are cases in Canada from the last two to three years that weren't being included.

The utility of the tool is to show two things. First, there are several tactics these authoritarian governments use to interfere in democracies, and ones we may not pay attention to, like the subversion of civil society groups. Think tanks and student associations are targeted and set up by authoritarian governments, which try to mask their connections to them, in order to shape discourse, promote censorship or forbid certain topics from being discussed in academic or political settings. It's to show how these tools are used to not only interfere in elections but to shape everyday democracy and discourse in our countries.

The other utility here is, hopefully, to show that these tools aren't really politically motivated. They are non-partisan when they are deployed. Yes, there are moments, and we are having a political debate about moments in which an authoritarian government might weigh in, trying to shape a particular election campaign. The tracker shows hundreds of cases in which these tools are being used well outside of the context of electoral democracy, simply to get Canadians, Americans and Europeans at each other's throats and to denigrate the whole process of living in a democratic society.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

We're going to do a quick, two-minute round with Mr. Calkins, followed by Mrs. Romanado.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question will be for my former colleague, Mr. Chiu.

Mr. Chiu, I'm sure you're familiar with a February 17 article published by Bob Fife and Steven Chase, which says:

A month after the September, 2021, vote, CSIS reported that it was “well-known within the Chinese-Canadian community of British Columbia” that Ms. Tong, then the Vancouver consul-general, “wanted the Liberal Party to win the 2021 election,” one of the reports said.

CSIS noted that Ms. Tong, who returned to China in July, 2022, and former consul Wang Jin made “discreet and subtle efforts” to encourage members of Chinese-Canadian organizations to rally votes for the Liberals and defeat Conservative candidates.

The article also says:

In early November, 2021, CSIS reported, Ms. Tong discussed the defeat of a Vancouver-area Conservative, whom she described as a “vocal distractor” of the Chinese government.

She went on to say in this article that she helped to defeat two Conservative MPs in the 2021 election.

Mr. Chiu, do you believe you're one of those two MPs?

[Kenny Chiu]

Yes, I do, although I do not have the screenshot showing the admission of guilt from consul general Tong Xiaoling.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Who would the other MP be?

[Kenny Chiu]

I believe it was the other Richmond MP, Ms. Alice Wong.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Why do you believe that, Mr. Chiu?

[Kenny Chiu]

Like I said at the beginning, the Conservative Party of Canada has been portrayed as not friendly to the CCP regime in Beijing, therefore.... Even in the article you just referred to, according to the CSIS whistle-blower, the consul general also saw the Conservatives as less of a preference than Justin Trudeau's Liberals.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mrs. Romanado, you have two minutes.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I will make one request of Mr. Chiu, and I have a question for Mr. Salvo.

Mr. Chiu, you mentioned that soon after 2020, you were provided a briefing by CSIS, and two more additional times. I'm going to ask you to submit to this committee the dates of those meetings you had with CSIS, for our timeline.

Mr. Salvo, you were talking a bit about the difficulties with respect to making sure average Canadians, and in your case Americans, understand what foreign interference looks like, some of the tactics that are used, and how we can detect, deter and counter some of those initiatives.

Can you elaborate a bit about any advice you would have for us in terms of recommendations that perhaps parliamentarians and their staff could be briefed on such tactics? What would you recommend our committee look at in terms of the detection and deterrents?

[David Salvo]

I think it's most important to look at what governments and countries that have been dealing with this challenge much longer than yours and mine have done to try to counter these threats and build resilience in their society. The Nordic and Scandinavian countries and the Baltic states are particularly good examples. Parliamentary exchanges, I would argue, are an excellent way to determine what you can do as a legislative body to not only pass legislation but to engage in outreach in your ridings.

That is really where a lot of the rubber meets the road. You all have cachet, presumably, with your constituents, and you are trusted, authoritative voices in your constituencies.

Leaving politics aside—I know that's hard—if you put aside, say, a specific instance of interference in a particular riding and talk about the tools and tactics that are used.... This shouldn't be controversial or partisan. These are tools and tactics that have been used in dozens of countries all over the democratic space. It's not unique to Canada, as you know. It's not unique to my country.

That will help. As we've learned in the States, that's really broken down some of the partisan divides. We shed light on these tactics and make ordinary voters aware of how they might be targeted at even the local level.