Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman has challenged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his assertion that
he wasn’t briefed by security or intelligence officials about China’s alleged funding of 11 candidates during the 2019 federal election.
“Just last week PM Trudeau said he raised the issue with President Xi,” Lantsman wrote in a
Twitter post on Nov. 20. “Hard to imagine complaining to the President about something you hadn’t been briefed on?”
The Prime Minister’s Office had
said Trudeau spoke with Chinese leader Xi Jinping about China’s alleged election interference while they attended the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia. Xi
later confronted Trudeau at the summit, saying it was “not appropriate” that the media had learned of their conversation.
Trudeau
told the media three days later that “there are always going to be more difficult conversations” with world leaders at global summits.
“Conversations don’t get to be easy when you’re standing up for your country when you’re presenting issues that are challenging,” he said on Nov. 18.
Allegations of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
covertly funding 11 candidates in Canada’s 2019 federal election arose after a Global News report published Nov. 7 said Trudeau was briefed by intelligence officials in January about the matter.
Never Briefed, Says Trudeau
Opposition MPs have called upon Trudeau to name the candidates he was briefed about.
On Nov. 20, however, Trudeau told reporters in Djerba, Tunisia, that he was never briefed about “any federal candidates receiving any money from China.”
“These media reports are things that we took seriously and we asked our security officials to follow up on them,” he said at a press conference.
“Let me be very clear: I have no information and I get briefed up regularly from our intelligence and security officials. I have no information on any federal candidates receiving money from China.”
The House of Commons Procedure and
House Affairs Committee last week voted against producing the briefing documents on China’s alleged election interference that media reports allege were presented to Trudeau in January.
MPs on the committee voted in favour of an amendment motion instead, requesting documents from all “relevant government departments and agencies” pertaining to the allegations.
Trudeau told reporters on Nov. 20 that he has asked Canada’s intelligence agencies to investigate the allegations and give the committee “all possible answers, everything they can.”
“Our government has always taken very seriously the responsibility of protecting Canadians, of working with our security agencies to do everything we can to keep Canadians and our institutions safe against foreign interference,” he said.
Isaac Teo and the Canadian Press contributed to this report.
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