Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2026

[Dr. Charles Burton]

Yes, I think so. I was quite surprised to find out that in addition to the very large embassy on St. Patrick Street, the Chinese authorities have other buildings in Ottawa to accommodate their diplomatic cohort, which is, I think, something like three or four times that of Japan and an even higher multiple of what we have for the Indians currently.

Assuming that Chinese diplomats work as efficiently as diplomats of other countries, one cannot but assume that a large number of the people whom we have accredited as diplomats in Canada are engaged in activities that are not part of legitimate diplomatic activities. We expelled one single Ministry of State Security agent, Zhao Wei, when there was some exposure in The Globe and Mail about his activities to potentially intimidate the family of the Conservative foreign policy critic Michael Chong, but I think there are a lot more of them.

The question really is this: Why do we have so many more Chinese diplomats accredited to Canada than we have Canadian diplomats accredited to China? I don't really understand it. How did this situation arise? Seeing as how it's within the rights of a country to agree or not agree to a diplomat based on what their function is supposed to be—the Chinese have attempted to have police stationed in Vancouver and we refused—why don't we determine how many diplomats they need and declare the rest of them persona non grata and send them back to Beijing? That would reduce the problem that I've tried to identify, which is that we haven't been able to deal with these revelations that have come through in the past couple of years in the Hogue commission and the CSIS documents.

Similarly, next month is the second anniversary of enacting Bill C-70, which is the Countering Foreign Interference Act. I've been watching it pretty closely, and I haven't seen any evidence of any foreign interference being countered whatsoever over the past two years.

I think maybe addressing it at the source, as you suggest, would be a better idea.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

With respect to Beijing's accredited diplomats, it's not just looking at the number and speculating that these diplomats are involved in foreign interference activities and transnational repression. It is well established, isn't it?

[Dr. Charles Burton]

Yes, I think we do have evidence of this going on, because of the activities that the leaked CSIS assessments, which subsequently have been affirmed to be genuine, have been warning the government about. There's no question that Chinese diplomats are very active in activities that are not consistent with normal diplomatic function.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

I would add that Madam Justice Hogue concluded that the PRC's Toronto consulate interfered in the 2019 Don Valley North Liberal nomination to support Han Dong, who became the Liberal candidate and then a Liberal MP. Beijing's Vancouver consulate had its fingerprints all over interference activities in the 2021 election in the Lower Mainland to defeat Conservative candidates, including targeting the then MP Kenny Chiu with a mass disinformation campaign. Joe Tay, the Conservative candidate in Don Valley North in the 2025 election, had a bounty placed on him by Beijing, and there's credible evidence that Beijing's Toronto consulate was involved in intimidation and voter suppression tactics in Don Valley North.

In the face of these egregious and blatant attacks on our sovereignty and our democratic processes, the Liberal government has done absolutely nothing to deal with the Toronto consulate or the Vancouver consulate, has it?

[Dr. Charles Burton]

No, and I think what we're looking at here is a very large Chinese Communist Party operation, whether it's the United Front Work Department or otherwise. If you look at the rank of the Chinese consul general in Vancouver, this person has a much higher rank in the Communist regime than one would expect for someone who is a consul general in a single North American city, suggesting that their responsibilities far exceed their diplomatic function.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Not a single diplomat has been expelled for these interference activities. You cited Zhao Wei, but outside of Zhao Wei, not a single diplomat has been expelled. Is that correct?

[Dr. Charles Burton]

Yes, and I'm discouraged. I did make a recommendation to the Hogue commission that we look into that. So far, it hasn't been acted on.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

There was not a single accredited diplomat summoned. Has the ambassador been summoned in respect of these specific activities related to interference in our elections?

[Dr. Charles Burton]

Not that I'm aware of.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We will now go to Ms. Kayabaga for six minutes, please.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to my colleague for allowing me to go first.

I want to welcome all of you back to our committee. I appreciate the time that you take to help us move along this really important conversation for Canadians.

Dr. Turnbull, I'll start with you.

The Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions confirmed that our elections remain secure, in large part. No democracy is immune to growing threats to elections that attempt to undermine confidence and erode trust in our democratic electoral process, and that's why we must continue to ensure that our democracy remains one of the strongest in the world and that it continues to be protected from ongoing threats whenever they arise. In that vein, I think we can all agree that it is past time for the recommendation of the public inquiry into foreign interference to be implemented.

My question for you is this: Could you comment on the importance of applying election protections against undue foreign influence, offering or accepting a bribe, broadcasting outside of Canada and misleading publications year-round?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

Are you asking about the importance of this for elections, or broadly?

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

You can speak to both.

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

I want to start with some of the things you said prior to the question, because I think that's really important. Democracies—Canada and elsewhere—are facing a very serious array of threats to the health of democracy. I don't think we can regulate or legislate our way out of all those things.

As much as we want to make sure the legislation is an appropriate tool to deal with the problems and we want to make sure we get it right—we don't want to pass legislation and then say, “Look, there are a whole bunch of gaps that we didn't get to” and miss the mark—there's only so much, with respect to the health of democracy, that a piece of legislation can achieve, even if it's done really well. The health of democracy is going to relate to things like civic literacy, voter engagement and voter trust in processes—voters knowing that the processes that elect people are secure and have integrity and that there's accountability if things go wrong. There will be some accountability and a price to pay if people break the rules, and the public needs to know that.

As much as we know we are not the United States, we can see sometimes when the Americans are having real conversations and real disagreements about how they're going to count votes and people not wanting to abide by or not wanting to accept results they don't like, and those sorts of conversations have a big effect on us.

I say all of that because I think it's important to note that there are things we can do to boost the health of democracy that we are going to rely on no matter how good the legislation is. It's not going to work if people aren't really engaged. In terms of making sure we say it out loud and put it in law that we do not tolerate undue influence from foreign actors, it's really important to let voters know that it is wrong, that it is not appropriate and that it is not something that is part of a healthy democracy. Our decisions as an electorate have to be our own.

There are always going to be foreign actors who will talk about what they want to see in a Canadian election, but there's a difference between interference and influence. I think that's why we say “undue influence” in the law. It's about not spending money on it, not doing it in a way that's clandestine and not doing it in a way that undermines the legitimacy of the result. As much as people from other countries will absolutely talk about who they think should win a Canadian election, we can handle that; that's okay. It's the actual campaigning activity that could happen that we want to get our arms around.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

I agree with you.

One of the other key measures in this bill is addressing deepfakes and false information. I think this bill is going to go a little farther in addressing when people use false information about candidates, propagate it and provide it to electors in the vein of trying to dissuade them or cause an election to go a certain way.

I wonder what your thoughts would be around that prohibition of false information sharing where it is shown that the person knew a statement was false but still framed it as something a candidate had said. What are the measures and what's the threshold? What are your thoughts around keeping the trust of our electors in our democracy, as well, as we move toward that step?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

We're asking people to be very discerning when it comes to how they allow themselves to be affected by information, in order to understand the difference between information, disinformation and misinformation. We're asking people to be savvy about that. It stands to reason, to me, that if we're going to do that, then we also have to make sure we're protecting a space around elections where people can trust that those contesting the elections are not going to be able to use sources of information or data that allow them to misrepresent things.

We need to strike a balance and make sure we're not censoring, but at the same time, there are reasons to do it.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

What do you think is the threshold to make sure we're not including personal opinion and what is considered parody?

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

That's a harder one. I was trying to answer the easy stuff, but that's really hard.

In a lot of ways, we've had some trouble with this before. I don't remember how many years ago this was, maybe seven years ago, but the government tried to make a change to prohibit false information even if the person didn't know it was false. It was overdoing it to the point that it was really difficult to try to justify that, because it went too far, but at the same time—

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

I'll have to cut you off at that point. My apologies.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you to all the witnesses.

I have questions for everyone, but I'll start with you, Mr. Burton.

You talked about foreign agents being able to use proxies to fund candidates backed by foreign actors. You mentioned the fact that people are often given the amount that corresponds to what they pay out of pocket, because part of the donation is reimbursed through tax credits. Based on that logic, when someone makes a $400 donation and receives a $300 tax credit, the foreign agent pays $100.

In a way, isn't the government funding foreign interference through this tax credit?

[Dr. Charles Burton]

Yes, that's how this scam worked. Presumably, the refunds were made through these police stations, these covert off-site institutions serving the Chinese government's interests. I don't think the people who received the money went to the Chinese embassy and got it from there.

It is indicative of problems in our enforcement of Canadian law. Everybody who was involved in this scheme clearly knew that it was illegal. There's no ambiguity about it. You were being given an under-the-table refund for your donation.

I'm just beside myself, but the issue for me really is whether it will stop. Are we actually going to prevent this behaviour from persisting in the next election in certain ridings that the Chinese state has identified as amenable to its subversion? The question is about what the rewards are for this. Some of it is the rewards that the people colluding with agents of the Chinese state are receiving back in China. How do we trace that kind of scheme, which is transnational and covert and corrupt?

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Burton.

As I understand it, given the current system, when the government gives a tax credit to intermediaries who make donations, it's paying for the interference with its own money.

Whether or not we agree with the principle, if the tax credits were abolished, that could have an impact on foreign interference.

Ms. Turnbull, I see that you want to respond to that.

I'd like to hear both of you comment on that.

[Dr. Lori Turnbull]

To the point you raised about what our opinions might be, it's important to have public funding for political parties. I would be in favour of reinstating the per-vote subsidy. I was sad to see that go. I think it's important for parties to have some base of funding to be able to compete and keep the lights on. There have been a lot of negative implications, frankly, of the struggle to try to recruit donations. You can donate up to about $1,700, but most people don't donate anywhere near that, and you end up having to compete for these tiny bits of money. That's a lot of what leads to some of the toxic rhetoric we see in politics a lot of the time, but that's a whole other thing.

It's 100% in the public interest to have public funds directed to political parties, but I completely agree with my colleague: If that money is then being used to turn around and give a tax credit for money that should never have been given in the first place, then, yes, it's part of the problem.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Ms. Lawlor, I'd like to ask you a question about data protection.

Parties often use third parties to get computer services for managing door-to-door data. As I mentioned, parties are no longer working with paper lists.

Can you give us any suggestions on how we could ensure that the organizations or companies that provide these computer services guarantee cybersecurity for data?

Have you given more thought as to how this could be regulated?

[Dr. Andrea Lawlor]

Thank you so much for the question.

You are absolutely correct in identifying third party data brokers as an important source of information for political parties and other organizations, ones that are currently not adequately captured under the legislative framework. These are commercial bodies that are selling or transferring information to and from political parties and are absolutely sites of potential data breaches. They operate on the fringes of political parties or in consultation with political parties but aren't restricted in the same way that political parties are, so it's really up to political parties, at this juncture, to regulate their own behaviours through their own internal policies. It does represent a site for potential misuse of voter data.

We can see in the Alberta example—there are also other examples across jurisdictions where we have seen violations of people's individual privacy rights because of these breaches that can occur at that juncture—that these bodies, as commercial bodies, are also playing a really important role in our democratic exercise but aren't caught by the legislation.