Canada Liberal Party leadership race: ‘Freeland’s campaign targeted by information campaign linked to China’

Chrystia Freeland, who was also finance minister, quit the government in December, precipitating a crisis which led to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement in early January that he intended to resign as leader of the ruling party once a successor was selected

Toronto: Canadian authorities have said that former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s campaign to become the next leader of the ruling Liberal Party has been targeted by an “information operation” on Chinese social media.

Chrystia Freeland, Canada's former finance minister, during a campaign event in Toronto, Ontario, on Sunday. (Bloomberg)

Global Affairs Canada’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM Canada), while monitoring the digital information ecosystem during the Liberal Party leadership race, identified an information operation targeting Freeland, a statement from the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force or SITE said on Friday.

“RRM Canada detected coordinated and malicious activity about Ms. Freeland. The launch of this information operation was traced to WeChat’s most popular news account – an anonymous blog that has been previously linked by experts at the China Digital Times to the People’s Republic of China,” the release stated.

RRM Canada identified over 30 WeChat news accounts taking part in the campaign, which featured news articles “disparaging” Freeland. RRM Canada estimates that two to three million WeChat users saw the campaign globally.

SITE briefed the executive of the Liberal Party and members of Freeland’s leadership campaign about these findings on Friday.

SITE is a multi-departmental working group which coordinates the government’s collection and analysis efforts concerning threats to Canada’s federal election processes. It includes members from Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment Canada.

Freeland, who was also finance minister, quit the government in December, precipitating a crisis which led to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement in early January that he intended to resign as leader of the ruling party once a successor was selected. That process is scheduled to be completed on March 9.

Freeland and former central banker Mark Carney are considered the main candidates in the leadership race.

On January 28, final report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions stated that China was “the most active perpetrator of foreign interference targeting Canada’s democratic institutions” and that Beijing “views Canada as a high-priority target”.

That report resulted from a series of exposes in Canadian media in early 2023 on foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 Federal elections by China, to favour the Trudeau-led Liberals over the opposition Conservatives.

On February 17, 2023: the news outlet Globe and Mail noted, “China employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada’s democracy in the 2021 federal election campaign as Chinese diplomats and their proxies backed the re-election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals – but only to another minority government – and worked to defeat Conservative politicians considered to be unfriendly to Beijing.” That report was based on intelligence documents.

The final report of the inquiry also alleged India is the “second most active country engaging in electoral foreign interference in Canada” and only China has a greater impact on the country’s democratic processes.