Police have opened a criminal investigation into 2021 election interference by foreign agents, RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme said yesterday. Testifying at the China inquiry, Duheme would not discuss details: “We received information that prompted us to open an investigation.”
Suspicions a Chinese agent was planted at a 2021 election meeting to heckle Conservative MP Michael Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills, Ont.) are “compelling” but unprovable, say police. “I slowly came to the realization many months afterwards that event may have been a foreign interference threat activity,” MP Chong testified at the China inquiry.
Executives with KPMG Canada yesterday were urged to get “lawyered up” over their dealings with an ArriveCan contractor now under investigation. KPMG managers testified at the Commons public accounts committee they were specifically told to work with GC Strategies Inc.: ‘I find it incredible that KPMG, this massive accounting firm, winds up as a subcontractor for two dudes working out of a basement.’
Federal employees did their bit to save electricity under a January 13 Alberta Emergency alert, records show. Guards dimmed the lights at an Edmonton penitentiary while constables unplugged RCMP block heaters at Elk Point as temperatures fell to -40°.
A former Conservative MP named as a target of Chinese Communist Party agents in the 2021 campaign yesterday said he felt like Canadian election monitors left him to drown. “The government doesn’t seem to care,” Kenny Chiu testified at the China inquiry.
Senior Liberal Party managers attended MP Han Dong’s 2019 nomination meeting deemed a target of Chinese agents, according to documents released yesterday by the Commission on Foreign Interference. “Party brass from Ottawa were at the nomination vote,” one eyewitness said in sworn statement: “They wanted to know whether there was anything the media could pick up on to tarnish the campaign.”
Foreign interference cost the Conservative Party “a certain number of seats” in the 2021 election, former leader Erin O’Toole yesterday testified at the China inquiry. Internal federal memos confirmed Conservatives were targeted by a Chinese language slander campaign claiming O’Toole planned to cut diplomatic relations with Beijing: “The government knew there was a level of foreign interference occurring.”
Federal agents have lost track of more than 28,000 foreign fugitives in Canada including several hundred with criminal records, documents show. The latest figures follow an admission by the Canada Border Services Agency that it found it difficult to keep track of people ordered deported: “Should we not look to remove close to 100 percent of these individuals?”
The Canada Border Services Agency yesterday said fears of transmitting Covid by paper Customs forms prompted it to spend $59.5 million on the ArriveCan app. Federal health authorities at the time said there was little chance of getting sick by handling paperwork: “The risk is not really out there.”
Independent MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) yesterday admitted foreign students attending school out of town voted in his 2019 Liberal nomination. Dong dismissed the incident as commonplace though his own campaign manager questioned Chinese teenagers’ eligibility to vote: “Do you accept that would be an outrageous intervention by the People’s Republic of China in our democracy?”
Liberal MP Ken Hardie (Fleetwood-Port Kells, B.C.) yesterday said he privately contacted the Canadian Security Intelligence Service following his 2021 re-election regarding allegations of pro-Liberal interference by foreign agents. The China inquiry yesterday disclosed names of 13 ridings including Hardie’s that were allegedly targeted by Beijing. Others include seats held by two former cabinet ministers and the current chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee: “I asked for a meeting with CSIS.”
Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party was never told its candidates were targeted by foreign agents, the China inquiry learned yesterday. One confidential memo said offshore money was “funneled to preferred candidates” deemed pro-China: “Would information of this nature have been useful to your Party?”
Pensions for retired MPs averaged $77,900 last year, an increase of nearly 10 percent since the pandemic, says the Treasury Board. Pensions are indexed to inflation to “cover increases in the cost of living.”
Zookeepers are protesting a Senate bill to restrict the public display of elephants and apes. Exotic animals in Canada enjoy the highest standards of care, the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee was told: “It is very disappointing.”
Federal investigators waited years to look into allegations a 2021 Liberal candidate benefited from thousands in undisclosed donations from friends of China, records show. Vancouver East candidate Josh Vander Vies’ campaign was ultimately fined $500 for poor bookkeeping: “I cannot speculate here.”
