Canada's intelligence services believe that China interfered in 2021's election in favor of Justin Trudeau.

 

Conservative party leader Erin O'Toole during the 2021 election. Bloomberg.

Canada's intelligence services believe that China interfered in 2021's election in favor of Justin Trudeau's liberal party. Bloomberg. Chinese officials expressed a desire to have Trudeau to win a minority government. Trudeau's liberals ended up with 160 seats, 10 shy of a majority. The Chinese are alleged to have accomplished this by using their Chinese diaspora in the country, who were encouraged to vote against Conservative candidates. The Chinese government was also accused of illegally donating to political candidates and reimbursing legal donors. Conservatives also accuse China of using social media and ethnic news sites to spread disinformation about them. The issue will likely cause issues for embattled Prime Minster Justin Trudeau. 

My Comment:

For all the noise and investigation against Russia during and after the 2016 election, I always wondered if China was doing so. Russia ended up running a couple twitter accounts and ran a few facebook pages. But it appears that China was directly interfering with Canada's 2021 federal election. 

The one thing that wasn't made clear is what China gains from a divided government in Canada. They wanted the Liberals to have a minority government and not a majority but I don't know how that helps Canada. I am far from an expert on Canada's elections or China's goals. 

Still, this was a lot bigger than Russia's mostly non-existent efforts in 2016. China stands accused of not only spreading misinformation, they are accused of spending money on candidates directly and ordering their former citizens to vote against the Conservatives. That's a lot more than a couple of small twitter accounts. 

This is a huge problem for Canada and a national security threat. Their 2021 election is tainted and Justin Trudeau is as well. He didn't win the election fairly and that calls into question everything that he has done since then. Given how controversial Trudeau is that's a huge problem. 

It also raises the question if Trudeau or the Liberals were coordinated with these efforts. They obviously benefited form it but that doesn't necessarily mean that they colluded. But it is very possible that they did indeed collude with China and that would be treasonous. Though if they did do so, I think it's hilarious that China only gave them enough help to get a minority government instead of a majority. 

Some of these efforts are probably not applicable to America. There is a Chinese diaspora here in the United States but they aren't anywhere near as large as Canada's. There might be a couple of elections nationally that could be affected by this kind of interference but I doubt there is much of it. 

I am much more concerned about China using the illegal donors and reimbursing people that donate legally. There is absolutely no reason why China couldn't do that here in the United States as well as in Canada. 

What really gets me is that I doubt these revelations will change anything in the United States. Election interference doesn't count unless it's the Russians that do it. And I doubt that China is the only other country that tried. Indeed, given how important our elections are, I would be surprised if there weren't dozens of countries that try to do so every election.