TORONTO—Former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is “calm and confident” in invoking the state of emergency law against motorcade protesters, rather than China. He said he should pay more attention to reports that the United States is interfering in Canada’s elections.
“The thing that bothered me about the prime minister’s testimony today is that he said he was ‘calm and confident’, which means he is very confident. He has over-reacted and is comforted by the fact that he has used our country’s war measures and emergency laws for troubling protests.” told the Epoch Times on Nov. 25.
“Domestic protests have caused him to take serious action, but despite foreign intervention, he has not taken any action. What does that show?”
The Public Order Emergency Committee was set up as required by law to assess whether the federal government’s use of emergency legislation to quell February’s motorcade protests was justified. . Trudeau, who was the last person to testify before the commission, said he felt “calm and confident” when he exercised the act.
“Fight for our democracy”
global news report On November 7, it was revealed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretly funded at least 11 candidates during the 2019 federal elections. The report added that Trudeau was briefed on the issue in January.
In response to the report, Prime Minister Trudeau told reporters on November 7 that China and other state actors “continue to play an aggressive game against our institutions and our democracy.” .
Most recently, he said he had never been briefed on any Chinese-funded candidates.
“We receive regular reports from intelligence and security services,” Trudeau told reporters in Djerba, Tunisia, on November 20.
Mr O’Toole, who had an extensive section on China policy in his party platform for the 2021 election, said Mr Trudeau believed he had been “offside China for years”.
“He must act and stand up to foreign interference regardless of which country it comes from. They should want our elections to be uninterrupted in all elections,” he said.
“Stopping political interference by the Communist Party of China should be a nonpartisan issue. We must fight for democracy.”
election interference
During a panel discussion at an event celebrating the publication of Benedict Rogers’ China Nexus in Toronto on Nov. 25, O’Toole was pleased the issue of election interference was getting more media attention. said.
MP spoke about how foreign interference affected the 2021 federal election, where he was leading the Conservative Party.
“Pollsters, modelers, [on election] The night told me I won 129 seats. We got 119 votes. There has been voter suppression in a series of elections in the southern mainland. [B.C.] And in GTA,” he said.
Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, who was seeking re-election in Steveston-Richmond East BC in the 2021 election, says he has been targeted in a massive misinformation campaign.
Chiu introduced the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the last Congress. If enacted, anyone working on behalf of a foreign entity would be obliged to register as a foreign agent.
However, articles widely circulated on Chinese social media claim the bill goes against the interests of the Chinese community. Chiu said this kind of misinformation campaign affected his re-election prospects and ultimately cost him re-election.
“We allowed this to happen”
O’Toole said the number of candidates allegedly funded by the Chinese government was 11 in 2019, and now there are more.
“Potentially there were some members of Congress in the House who, unbeknownst to them, had people around them who were considered endangered in the intelligence community? No one wants to think that there are people in danger around a single member of the ,” he said.
“If we don’t take this seriously, we are in a real time of foreign policy change because we have allowed this.”
Peter Wilson contributed to this report.
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Omid Ghoreishi is a Toronto-based reporter for the Epoch Times.