David Vigneault testifies that he told PM and cabinet there was clandestine and deceptive Chinese interference in past two federal elections, but overall results weren’t affected
David Vigneault, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service , prepares to appear before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on Parliament Hill in Ottawa June, 2023.Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director David Vigneault cast doubt on the notion that the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government wasn’t fully informed on Chinese state meddling in the 2019 and 2022 elections and defended the conduct of the work of the spy agency.
Trudeau aide Jeremy Broadhurst had also told the inquiry Tuesday that certain messages in the October 2022 briefing note had never been delivered. “This stuff has never been said to us,” he said. “We’ve never heard language like the stuff that is in this document.” “It is indeed something that I communicated,” he said. “In our assessment we saw foreign interference in both the 2019 and 2021 elections.”
Mr. Vigneault pushed back on the notion the Liberal government wasn’t informed that Canada is slower to respond to foreign interference than other Five Eyes countries that include the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. He said he told them Canada’s lack of strong countermeasures for foreign interference makes such meddling a “low risk and high reward” endeavour for hostile actors.
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