The Canadian government was slow in responding to efforts by China and India to interfere in the country’s elections, but their outcome was unaffected by the meddling, an official probe said in a final report released on Tuesday.
The report was the culmination of a probe set up in September 2023 in response to media reports about possible Chinese interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections, both of which were won by the ruling Liberal Party.
The conclusion confirmed the findings of an interim report released in May last year that said foreign interference had not changed the results of the elections, but eroded public trust in the electoral system.
Photo: Reuters
China condemned the findings, saying they were “groundless accusations and smears.”
“China has always been upholding the noninterference principle in internal affairs and has never interfered in the internal affairs of Canada, nor is it interested in doing so,” its embassy in Ottawa said in a statement.
It accused Canada of interference in China’s internal affairs.
India also rejected the allegations in the report and accused Canada of “consistently interfering in India’s internal affairs.”
The Canadian Foreign Interference Commission said in a statement it found that foreign meddling in Canada’s elections was not new, but that it was on the rise and the methods used were changing.
The probe found that the Liberal government “sometimes took too long to act, and coordination was less than optimal.”
“The commission also found that the government has been a poor communicator both about the extent of foreign interference that it detected and the means in place to counter it, and that it must find ways to be more transparent,” it said.
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