It is extremely important that people can have confidence in our electoral processes. We know it must worry you if this is the case […] Evidence that the integrity of our elections may be at riskhe answered first when he went to a meeting of his group.

He hastened to repeat that according to information he had privately and publicly, there was no interference that would have changed the outcome of our elections.

The prime minister reiterated that this was the conclusion of an independent intelligence committee and said so this time the election officer came to the same conclusion last night.

Appears on Tuesday afternoon before a parliamentary committeethe election officer Stéphane Perrault stated that this was not the case able to comment on the accuracy of the content of recent reports.

Funded candidates in the 2019 federal election?

The Global Network reported earlier this month, citing unnamed sources, that the prime minister was informed last January that China had funded at least 11 candidates in the 2019 federal election.

Mr Perrault said he was not given the details as part of his duties at Elections Canada and that if an inquiry were to be made into specific allegations it would be more the responsibility of the Commissioner of Elections to do so on his own.

On Tuesday night, another parliamentary committee heard researchers and experts, but no representative from Elections Canada. Senior State Department officials were also scheduled to testify, but their appearance was canceled at the last minute, members of that committee denounced.

Be that as it may, Mr Trudeau confirmed on Wednesday that his government is happy to confirm […] that there have been no attacks on the integrity of our elections.

He claimed, as he did on Tuesday, that he instructed his intelligence advisers to do so get to the bottom of things as soon as Global’s first article on the subject is published.

” I am regularly briefed on the issues that may affect our institutions and the integrity of our elections and I have not received any information on this. »

When asked if the connection made with questioning the election results that allowed Joe Biden to succeed Donald Trump was directed at opposition parties in the House of Commons or even Canadians concerned about possible Chinese interference, she replied Mrs. Trudeau not directly.

When asked whether she agreed with the parallel and whether she thought it should be done, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said yes Then the Prime Minister spoke [qu’elle n’a] no more comments to add.

We respect your work as journalists. It’s very, very important. At the same time, we make decisions based on the information we haveshe added when pressed with questions in the crowd.

The opposition wants more details

According to New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh, Mr Trudeau should not have made the connection he did. It is totally different from the claims [concernant la Chine] and how we must act to address people’s concerns and show that we are doing everything in our power to ensure the security of our elections, he commented. I don’t think we should mix these two issues.

Blockhaus leader Alain Therrien saw the prime minister’s comments as an attack on opposition parties and a way of sidestepping the real issue of whether a rupture in Canadian democracy had opened up.

We didn’t say the 2019 election was invalid. We never talked about that. I have listened to debates in Parliament and no opposition party has ever done so […], he pounded. He also compares us to the United States. We are very, very far away from that.

Conservative Pierre Paul-Hus did not address the issue of rapprochement with the United States on Tuesday. We just really want to know what happenedhe said.

Its leader, Pierre Poilievre, on Wednesday urged Mr Trudeau to clarify how specific interventions He referred to it when he shared his concerns with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit last week.

The Prime Minister then made his most detailed statement to date on the matter.

” We have known for several years that Chinese government officials in Canadian communities have joined efforts with local media to report on illegal Chinese police stations. »

President Xi had snubbed the premier after his office said the latter had shared his concerns on the matter. The Chinese foreign ministry then qualified, arguing that the president had not criticized anyone and that it was Canada that was being disrespectful and condescending.