New Delhi: Before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of having a hand in the killing of Sikh extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Ottawa was embroiled in a different crisis with foreign policy implications.
The Canadian media has over the past year reported about an alleged organised effort by China to influence the outcome of Canada’s 2019 and 2021 elections to ensure victory for Trudeau’s Liberal Party.
The Canadian government early last month ordered an independent public inquiry into the allegations, headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue.
In February this year, The Globe and Mail put out a detailed investigative report saying that the Chinese government and its proxies had run a sophisticated campaign to influence voters in Canada to vote for the Liberal Party in 2021 — but just enough to ensure a minority government, which . The report cited top-secret reports of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) accessed by the newspaper.
According to the article, China used disinformation campaigns and proxies connected to Chinese-Canadian organisations in Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area, where a large number of mainland Chinese communities live, to influence voters to oppose the Conservative Party and vote for the Liberal Party.
In March this year, the Liberal government appointed David Johnston, a former governor general of Canada, as an independent special rapporteur to tackle the issue of alleged foreign interference in Canadian politics.
Trudeau had tasked Johnston with setting a path forward for the government on the issue, and he filed a final and confidential report on 26 June this year.
A few Sikh groups in Canada — the British Columbia Gurdwaras Council and the Ontario Gurdwaras Committee — had also asked for the probe to look into allegations of Indian interference in Canadian politics, CBC News reported in March.
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Trudeau govt’s response & diplomatic fallout
On 6 March, 2023, about two weeks after The Globe and Mail‘s report, Trudeau ordered two closed-door probes into Beijing’s alleged interference in the elections.
Johnston was appointed to handle these probes till at least October 2023, but he resigned the month he filed his final report, due to allegations of partisanship around the probe.
Johnston was accused by three political parties — the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois — of being too close to the Trudeau family.
On 1 May, The Globe and Mail reported that a Chinese diplomat had attempted to intimidate Conservative MP Michael Chong and his relatives living in Hong Kong in the run-up to the 2021 federal elections.
The fallout from this report led to Canada declaring Zhao Wei, a Chinese diplomat, persona non grata and expelling Wei on 8 May.
Canada has decided to declare persona non grata, Mr. Zhao Wei. pic.twitter.com/rZXeNTtdV4
— Mélanie Joly (@melaniejoly) May 8, 2023
In a tit-for-tat move, China expelled Canada’s consul in Shanghai, Jennifer Lynn Lalonde, on 9 May.
After Johnston’s resignation, the Liberal government started working with the other three official parties in Canada on the terms of a public inquiry into the alleged foreign interference, a process that took almost all of the summer until 7 September, when Justice Hogue was announced as the head of the inquiry.
The terms of reference agreed to by all political parties were that the inquiry panel would file an initial report by 24 February 2024, and a second report in December 2024. The reports would investigate alleged interference by China, Russia and other foreign state or non-state actors, including looking at any impact during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, according to media reports.
It was reported that the inquiry was to start on 18 September — the day Trudeau accused India of being linked to the killing of Nijjar.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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