Former leader Erin O'Toole believes that Canada's Conservative Party lost five to nine seats in the 2021 election due to a CCP-orchestrated disinformation campaign targeting Conservative candidates on Chinese-language social media.
Foreign interference cost Conservative Party up to 9 seats in 2021, O'Toole tells inquiry | CBC News | Peter Zimonjic:
April 03, 2024 - "Former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole told the Foreign Interference Commission inquiry Wednesday that he believes his party lost five to nine seats because of a foreign misinformation campaign aimed at Conservative candidates in B.C. and Ontario, and at his party more generally. O'Toole also told the commission he might have continued as leader after losing the 2021 federal election had it not been for Beijing's misinformation efforts....
"'The small number of seats would not have impacted the minority government that Canada has right now, but the difference of two, three, five seats may have allowed me more of a moral justification to remain as leader,' he said. O'Toole told the commission that winning two fewer seats than the party did in the 2019 election made it very difficult for him to make that case.
"Speaking in Toronto on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed O'Toole's suggestion that foreign interference cost the Conservatives seats as something coming from 'someone who lost an election … trying to look for reasons other than themselves.'
"Commission counsel cited policy promises in the 2021 Conservative platform explaining how it would approach China and asked O'Toole if those pledges might explain why his party lost those five to nine seats. The platform promised to recognize the Uyghur genocide, ban imports manufactured with forced and enslaved Uyghur labour and ban Chinese mobile giant Huawei from Canada's 5G infrastructure. O'Toole dismissed the suggestion....
"'In recent years there's been a ramping up of foreign interference operations and that's why I don't think some of those seats were turned because we had a more traditional, or a more aggressive, foreign policy posture with respect to China,' O'Toole said. 'I think a lot of people did not vote because they were intimidated.'
"Commission counsel also asked O'Toole about a Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force assessment that was prepared a week before the 2021 federal election detailing possible foreign interference threats. That document said the Rapid Response Mechanism Canada (RRM Canada), which monitors foreign state-sponsored disinformation, had observed what might have been a Chinese Communist Party campaign to discourage people from voting Conservative. 'This was not raised to our attention,' O'Toole said.
"O'Toole was also asked about another RRM document dated around the same time that cited media outlets in Fujian province reporting a Conservative government in Canada would pursue 'greater political cooperation with Taiwan.' 'No, we were not informed of that,' O'Toole said. 'In fact we were raising instances of foreign interference that we witnessed and the SITE committee tended to downplay them. We were given the impression that there were no concerns about foreign interference.'
"The former leader said Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking campaign workers in B.C. noticed that social media platforms and chat groups in China were spreading disinformation about his party and candidates, and the party reported their concerns to SITE. O'Toole said that the reports from the field that he remembers most clearly involved Kenny Chiu, then the Conservative MP for the B.C. riding of Steveston—Richmond East.
"'The level and volume and tone of misinformation towards Mr. Chiu was horrendous,' O'Toole said. 'He was fearful for his own well being and that of his family and it was a personal attack of a racially motivated nature, suggesting he was a race traitor.' O'Toole said his party heard nothing back from SITE....
"Chiu told the commission Wednesday that he'd hoped David Johnston, appointed by Prime Minister Trudeau as special rapporteur on foreign interference, would talk to him. He said Johnston never met with him."
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/otoole-foreign-interference-inquiry-1.7161989
Erin O'Toole alleges foreign interference may have cost him his job | CBC News: The National | April 3, 2024:
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