China Running Canadian Elections....hmm


Carson Jerema: Justin Trudeau is the only one acting like Donald Trump

Feb 28 2023


On the question of China’s interference into our elections, Justin Trudeau is doubling down on a familiar strategy: never admitting anything is wrong, denying he has any knowledge of whatever it is being alleged, and attempting to find a way to bait the Conservatives into doing something irresponsible. In this case, the prime minister seems desperate for the opposition to accuse him of colluding with China.

How else is one to explain that when faced with credible evidence, first published by the Globe and Mail, that Beijing actively interfered in the 2021 election, that Trudeau dismissed concerns as somehow unpatriotic? He has accused the Conservatives, for daring to ask questions, of giving “partisan reasons to mistrust the outcome” of the vote.

Well no, no one, not the Conservatives nor the media (Liberal-friendly or otherwise), has suggested that the “outcome” of the election is in question. And no one has suggested that Trudeau or the Liberal party has colluded with the Chinese government.

But just because the outcome isn’t in question doesn’t mean there are not serious allegations to be investigated and answered for. According to Canadian Security and Intelligence Service documents, Beijing wanted the Liberals to win the 2021 election, and preferred a minority parliament. China targeted multiple ridings by supplying campaign workers and cash donations in support of Liberal candidates, among other tactics. Certain Chinese-language media were instructed to oppose the Conservatives.

China was motivated by its disapproval of the Conservative party’s China policies, and a desire to encourage division in Canada.

Rather than acknowledge the seriousness of the claims, the prime minister’s initial response was concern not with what the CSIS leak revealed, but that there was a leak in the first place. He has also complained about “inaccuracies” in CSIS’s findings and is refusing outright to hold a public inquiry, in addition to suggesting that anyone asking about the security of our elections must be doing so for partisan reasons.

Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell similarly accused the Conservatives of using “Trump-type” tactics and Trudeau’s former principal secretary” as if they ran a front page story about cat videos.

Are Trudeau and his supporters acting so defensively because China’s goals were to return a minority Liberal government to power? Is the prime minister perhaps feeling nervous after years of cozying up to China?

Is Trudeau worried there will be questions about his years of ambivalence towards the threat China poses, be it in espionage, corporate theft, opening police stations in Canada, and de-facto kidnapping our citizens? Or does he fear questions about his government’s refusal to do more than barely acknowledge the genocidal policies being waged against the Uyghurs, the strangling of Honk Kong, and Taiwan’s ever present existential peril?

No doubt, Trudeau is aware of how his affinity for China looks now that it is public knowledge that Beijing has been interfering in elections on the Liberals’ behalf.


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heIt would benefit the government immensely if the Conservatives were lured into saying the election outcome, as opposed to a handful of seats, really was corrupted, because they would look unhinged.

And that is what is motivating the Liberals. It is potential electoral advantage against the Tories, not the integrity of the vote, that matters most to Trudeau. A true statesman would pledge to solve the problem. The prime minister is angling for a lead in the polls.

After Global revealed Friday that CSIS was concerned that Liberal MP Han Dong is a “witting affiliate in China’s election interference networks,” Trudeau remained defiant and gave Dong his full throated support. “We are extraordinarily lucky and happy to have a Member of Parliament like Han Dong,” he said Monday.

Trudeau even suggested that concern about election interference was driven by “anti-Asian racism.”

The prime minister reacted in a similarly defensive fashion when it was reported in the fall, also by Global, that 11 candidates (nine Liberals, two Conservatives) were supported by Beijing in the 2019 election. “We are seeing a little bit, at the moment, people playing games that we have seen south of the border, saying: ‘ah, the elections were not legitimate, we lost because of the influence of other countries,’ ” he said at the time. 

But then, as now, no one was claiming the Conservatives lost the election due to Chinese interference, in either 2019 or 2021.

The prime minister is doing his best to portray his opponents as doing an impression of Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 American vote, despite having zero evidence of widespread fraud.

In fact, it is Trudeau who is the one acting like Trump, specifically 2016-era Trump when there was evidence of Russian interference in the U.S. election. Trudeau, like Trump, is pretending interference was not a problem, and Trudeau, like Trump, is attacking media and political opposition for even asking questions. Trump dismisses reporting he doesn’t like as “fake news,” while the Trudeau Liberals often do the same thing but call it “misinformation.”