Erin O’Toole claims Chinese misinformation campaigns impacted conservative performance in the 2021 elections

Former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole voiced concerns over China’s alleged foreign interference in the 2021 Canadian federal elections, suggesting it significantly affected the Conservative Party’s performance. Speaking before a public inquiry, O’Toole detailed how misinformation spread by China and its proxies led to the defeat of up to nine Conservative candidates.

O’Toole clarified that while he does not believe the interference altered the overall election outcome—a Liberal minority government—he argued that it swayed voters in specific ridings. He criticized the government’s election integrity officials for their inaction, stating they were aware of the interference but failed to alert the public or the political parties involved.

Documents from the Security and Intelligence Threats Election Task Force (SITE) were presented during O’Toole’s testimony, revealing efforts by Beijing to disseminate disinformation targeting the Conservative Party’s China-critical campaign platform. Despite raising these issues with SITE, O’Toole remarked that their concerns were consistently downplayed.

A significant part of the disinformation campaign involved narratives spread on WeChat, a Chinese-language social media app, painting the Conservative platform as antagonistic towards China. This led to fearmongering among Chinese Canadian communities, suggesting that O’Toole’s policies would drastically deteriorate Canada-China relations.

O’Toole expressed his wish for SITE to have issued a public warning about the misinformation. He refrained from doing so himself, fearing it would polarize the issue further during the campaign. He stressed the importance of transparency and public awareness in combating foreign interference.

The former Conservative leader based his claims on internal party modelling, which indicated the party fell short of expected seat wins, attributing the discrepancy to foreign interference that likely deterred voter turnout in certain ridings. O’Toole argued that this interference infringed upon the democratic rights of Canadian voters, emphasizing the need for serious consideration of the issue.

The aftermath of the election saw the release of a SITE document in December 2021, acknowledging attempts by the People’s Republic of China to covertly influence the election outcome. This included social media attacks on prominent Conservative figures, information that O’Toole claims was not shared with him despite the party reporting suspicions of foreign influence operations in 13 ridings.

O’Toole linked the election results and the subsequent revelations of Chinese interference to his eventual removal as party leader, suggesting that the increased seat count could have secured his position. The inquiry also heard testimony from former MP Kenny Chiu, who detailed his experiences with foreign interference, highlighting the broader impacts of such activities on Canadian democracy.

The inquiry into foreign interference continues to shed light on the complexities of safeguarding electoral processes and democratic institutions against external threats, with political leaders and experts calling for enhanced measures to detect and counteract foreign influence operations.