Canadian co-chairs for the International Parliamentary Alliance, Conservative MP for Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan Garnett Genuis, right, and Liberal MP for Scarborough-Guildwood John McKay appear at the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions on Sept. 17 in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The Office of the Commissioner of Elections Canada found widespread meddling by China and its proxies in the 2021 election defeat of former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, but the watchdog agency says it is unable to lay charges because the laws fail to take account of this type of foreign interference.
An Aug.19 redacted report from the Commissioner of Elections Canada tabled at the public inquiry into foreign interference Tuesday said investigators gathered information of multipronged attempts to influence the Chinese-Canadian diaspora in the Greater Vancouver area, including Mr. Chiu’s Steveston-Richmond East riding.
But the 112-page report concluded there was not sufficient evidence to lay charges of undue foreign influence under the current Elections Canada Act.
While there was a concerted effort by China and its proxies to influence Chinese-Canadian voters, Carmen Boucher, director of enforcement, told the inquiry elections laws do not take into account this type of activity.
She said the Election Canada Act, for example, only gives investigators the power to lay charges if an individual elector faces acts of intimidation.
“So widespread, systemic efforts to sway a community to act in a certain manner would be very difficult to prove, but it also would also be very unlikely to fall under the specific contraventions of the Act as narrowly as they are written,” she said, when asked by an inquiry lawyer what was needed to substantiate a charge.
Ms. Boucher said that her office, which investigates election wrongdoing, does not have the power to create offences to deal with this type of foreign interference. The law must be changed by Parliament.
“We are not responsible for creating legislation. We enforce the Act as approved by Parliament,” she said. The review was undertaken after a formal request from the Bloc Québécois to re-examine China’s election meddling in Mr. Chiu’s riding and that of other Conservatives candidates in Greater Vancouver.
Ms. Boucher said the report in its largely unredacted form has been sent to the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
“My investigators’ role is to identify contraventions to our Act. They are not experts in national-security law and they are certainly not experts in the PRC and their efforts,” she said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
The report was detailed and critical in laying out how China and its Canadian proxies worked to undermine Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) candidates in the 2021 election, particularly Mr. Chiu, an outspoken critic of the Beijing regime.
“Information gathered indicates that impetus and direction was given by PRC officials for the anti-CPC campaign,” the report said, citing a 2020 media interview by the then-Chinese consul general in Vancouver, a 2021 media interview by the Chinese ambassador, as well as an article published in the Global Times, a state-run Chinese tabloid, among other examples.
“The overall campaign was carried out and amplified via a multi-pronged and layered approach using Chinese Canadian association individuals, Chinese Canadian business interests as well as the pervasive social media and printed, digital and broadcast media messaging.”
The messaging aimed at Mr. Chiu claimed he was an “anti-China racist” because of his support for Uyghurs, pro-democracy Hong Kong demonstrators and what pro-China groups called an “anti-China” Conservative election platform.
The report said investigators were hampered by the fact that “many Chinese Canadian interview subjects described electors having an anticipatory ‘fear’ for family or economic well-being based on how the Chinese Communist Party works in China, but they consistently refused to name electors as interview subjects to support this.”
Earlier Tuesday, two MPs known as strong critics of Beijing’s human-rights abuses told the inquiry they can’t be certain that diaspora community contacts were not compromised by Chinese cybersecurity attacks on their parliamentary and personal mobile devices.
Liberal John McKay and Conservative Garnett Genuis, co-chairs of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), testified on revelations earlier this year that 18 legislators in Canada were targeted in 2021 by hackers linked to Beijing.
China’s hacking of Canadian members of IPAC was discovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which passed on the information to Ottawa in 2022. The government then informed Parliament, but MPs and senators were not told of this warning.
In testimony at the inquiry, Mr. McKay called China’s state security cyberattacks a “massive operation,” although he said House of Commons security assured him the firewall on his parliamentary mobile was not breached.
But Mr. McKay said he remains concerned that hackers from China could have been successful and this would have exposed members of diaspora communities that he deals with on confidential human-rights issues.
“I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I may have inadvertently exposed people who communicated with me,” Mr. McKay said when asked if the cyber hacking put these contacts at risk. “I am thinking of one particular individual from the Hong Kong community. I am thinking of some of the Falun Gong folks who would be in my contact list.”
Mr. Genuis, who conversed with members of diaspora communities on both his personal and parliamentary mobile devices, said China had targeted his personal mobile device. He has no idea if that phone was compromised.
“I have had communications on my personal account with individuals from [diaspora] communities, information that those individuals would not want any malicious actor to have access to,” he said.
Both MPs said House of Commons security did not conduct cybersecurity scans of their devices after the attack. Nor did government security agencies such as the Communications Security Establishment or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Mr. Genuis said he felt let down that neither the government nor the House of Commons alerted them about the Chinese cyberattacks. They found out from the executive director of IPAC after he was informed by the FBI.
“We could have taken steps to protect ourselves more effectively if we had been informed and we were not informed,” Mr. Genuis said. “It remains mysterious to me why no one thought I had a right to know that this information that was very important to how I would protect myself and the people I correspond with.”
The inquiry also heard that Ottawa provides zero cyber protection for personal smartphones MPs carry. It’s not uncommon for MPs to carry two devices, with one supplied by the House of Commons and the other a personal phone – a second target for hackers.
Mr. McKay urged the inquiry to provide recommendations to Parliament on strengthening cybersecurity safeguards, including measures to warn parliamentarians properly when they are being threatened by hackers from hostile foreign states.
The Chinese hacking group that went after Canadian MPs had ties to the government in Beijing and been nicknamed Advanced Persistent Threat 31 or “APT31.″