Liberal national director in hot seat over foreign interference

Three months after the bill was introduced in Parliament, the national director of the Liberal Party of Canada says he has yet to read a shocking report concluding that one of his party’s nomination races was linked to foreign interference by China.

Azam Ishmael testified Friday before the public inquiry into foreign interference. He initially told investigators he did not believe the Liberal Party had ever been the victim of foreign interference.

During questioning by Sujit Choudhry, lawyer for NDP MP Jenny Kwan, Ishmael admitted that he had never read the full report prepared by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), which was made public in early June.

“No, not the 92 pages,” Ishmael replied.

Choudhry then examined a number of paragraphs from the report about the 2019 Liberal Party nomination race in the Toronto-area constituency of Don Valley North, which was won by Han Dong. Ishmael admitted that he had never read those paragraphs.

The report, which cites information from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), describes how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) consulate in Toronto hired buses to transport 175 to 200 Chinese international students to the nomination meeting. They were reportedly told they had to vote for Dong if they wanted to keep their visas to study in Canada.

According to the consulate, the consulate also violated the Liberal Party rule that requires voters participating in a nomination process to reside in the constituency by providing students living outside the constituency with fraudulent documents.

“By successfully intervening in the nomination process of what could be considered a safe district for the Liberal Party of Canada, the PRC was well-positioned to ensure that its preferred candidate was elected to Parliament,” the report said.

The report says CSIS informed a Liberal Party representative with secret clearance several weeks after the nomination meeting, who then informed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the next day. “The Liberal Party of Canada allowed Mr. Dong to run in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections,” the report says.

Ishmael, who became national director in 2017, said he was sworn to secrecy and attended the briefing. However, he told investigators that until Choudhry questioned him, he had not heard that the buses had been paid for by the People’s Republic of China, that the students had been told they could lose their visas if they did not vote for Dong, or that some of the students lived outside the constituency.

Ishmael refused to answer questions from journalists as he left the inquiry, referring all inquiries to the Liberal Party’s communications department.

Ishmael’s testimony came Friday as the foreign interference investigation, led by Judge Marie-Josée Hogue, continues its second phase of hearings.

The investigation was launched following media reports accusing China of interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

In her first report, made public in May, Hogue said that while there may have been foreign interference in a small number of constituencies, she said it had no impact on the overall election outcome.

In the second phase, the research focuses on the extent to which the government is equipped to combat foreign interference in elections and how that capacity has developed over time.

Over the past two days, the investigation has looked at how federal political parties protect themselves from foreign actors who could interfere with donations and nomination contests.

After a break on Monday for International Translators’ Day, the inquiry is expected to resume on Tuesday with witnesses from the House of Commons, the Senate and Canadian elections official Stéphane Perrault.

The second phase of fact-finding hearings is expected to conclude on October 16 with testimony from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.