• Robert Fife

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested Wednesday that Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre must have something to hide by refusing to obtain a national security clearance to learn the names of Conservative parliamentarians and party members engaged in or susceptible to foreign interference by unnamed hostile powers.But the Conservative Leader accused the Prime Minister of trying to gag him, and the party’s foreign affairs critic, Michael Chong, urged the Liberal government to table the names of all compromised MPs in every party in the House of Commons.“The Prime Minister is playing politics with national security,” Mr. Chong said in an interview. “It suggests he has something to hide because he is not willing to release all the names.”

• 2024-10-23
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top advisers say they have no plans to investigate why a CSIS surveillance warrant targeting an influential Liberal power broker was delayed in the office of then-public safety minister Bill Blair in 2021, three months before a federal election was called.

• 2024-10-15
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

It took at least six weeks for Bill Blair, then-public safety minister, to sign an electronic and entry warrant to monitor former Ontario cabinet minister Michael Chan in the lead-up to the 2021 federal election, according to documents tabled at the foreign-interference inquiry. Sworn testimony made public Friday suggests that the delay was eight weeks or more.

• 2024-09-28
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

China and India are deeply engaged in attempting to influence diaspora communities and elect MPs sympathetic to their interests through illicit funding and disinformation campaigns, according to a CSIS report tabled at the public inquiry into foreign interference. The inquiry has already heard testimony about the broad range of China’s foreign-influence activities, but the new Canadian Security Intelligence Service document details how heavily involved the government of India is in trying to meddle in Canadian domestic affairs and undermine support for the Khalistan movement that seeks an independent Sikh state in Punjab.

• 2024-09-19
• — The Globe and Mail

• Steven Chase, Robert Fife

Ex-CSIS director Richard Fadden is leading a contingent of former Canadian security and defence officials on a trip to Taiwan next week in an effort to deepen informal relations with the self-governed island as it grapples with increasing efforts by China to diplomatically isolate the Asian democracy.

• 2024-09-12
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has alleged, in documents filed in federal court, that three principal shareholders in Wealth One Bank of Canada were vulnerable to coercion by China’s ruling Communist Party and may have engaged in money laundering as part of Beijing’s foreign-interference operations in this country.

• 2024-09-07
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says she didn’t soft-pedal Beijing’s interference in Canadian affairs or its human-rights record during blunt talks with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi last week, a one-day visit aimed at reopening channels of dialogue after six years of a deep freeze in bilateral relations. Ms. Joly met with the Chinese foreign minister for three and a half hours at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing on Friday but the two ministers did not break any significant ground in strained bilateral relations. A major reset is unlikely in part because of unfavourable perceptions of China among Canadians, she said.

• 2024-07-22
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Marieke Walsh

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has been trying for years to recruit former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney to the federal cabinet but stopped short of saying he would like him to replace Chrystia Freeland as finance minister.The Globe and Mail reported Thursday that senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office are concerned about Ms. Freeland’s effectiveness in selling the government’s economic message and discussed at one point the possibility of reaching out to Mr. Carney to serve as finance minister.

• 2024-07-11
• — The Globe and Mail

• Steven Chase, Robert Fife

The federal government has paid $8.6-million to acquire a privately owned aircraft hangar adjacent to a NORAD air base in the Arctic community of Inuvik, a strategic piece of continental air-defence infrastructure and satellite ground stations that has attracted interest from China and Russia.

• 2024-07-09
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and the Bloc Québécois said Thursday that they want parliamentary hearings into a Globe and Mail report that then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan directed the Canadian military to mount a rescue operation for Afghan Sikhs after the fall of Kabul in 2021, an action the senior cabinet minister said was government policy.

• 2024-06-28
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife

The Liberal government intends to move ahead with its 2019 campaign commitment to put an end to open-net salmon fish farms in coastal B.C. waters but the industry has been given five years to adapt to the plan, three sources say. The federal cabinet made the decision last week and an announcement is expected on Wednesday in British Columbia, the sources say. The exact details, including a transition plan for the operators and fish workers, were not shared with The Globe and Mail. The Globe is keeping the sources confidential because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

• 2024-06-17
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

The Liberal government is facing pushback from Justice Marie-Josée Hogue for citing cabinet confidentiality in redacting records provided to the public inquiry investigating meddling by China and other hostile states in Canadian democracy.The government is also completely withholding an undisclosed number of cabinet documents, according to the Privy Council Office (PCO), which reports directly to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc had initially promised that the Commission into Foreign Interference would have full access to secret documents, including “all relevant cabinet documents” even if some of that sensitive information can’t be made available to Canadians.

• 2024-05-23
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Nancy Macdonald, Greg Mercer

India refused to let Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plane land in Punjab during a visit in 2018 unless he and his defence minister agreed to meet with a government official to air grievances about Sikh separatists in Canada, including Hardeep Singh Nijjar, according to a source with direct knowledge.During the meeting, India’s minister for the Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh, handed Mr. Trudeau and then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan a dossier containing the names of about 10 Sikh activists whose activities the Indian government wanted curtailed, the source said.

• 2024-05-07
• — The Globe and Mail

• Steven Chase, Robert Fife

A group of Canadian MPs and senators who belong to an international parliamentary alliance critical of the Chinese government say the FBI recently informed their organization that many in their ranks were targeted by hackers linked to Beijing. They say the Canadian government never told them of this People’s Republic of China (PRC) cyberattack despite the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation passed on the information to foreign capitals in 2022.

• 2024-04-29
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

A sharper focus on the Arctic in Ottawa’s defence policy is a strategic move welcomed by Western allies, Canada’s top soldier says, as Russia and China contest this increasingly pivotal region, where global warming is opening the Northern Sea Route to shipping and military manoeuvres.

• 2024-04-15
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

A top secret CSIS briefing prepared for the Prime Minister’s Office in February 2023 last year, following leaks to the media about Chinese meddling, said Beijing “clandestinely and deceptively interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 general elections.”The classified document, dated Feb. 21, 2023, was tabled at the Commission of Inquiry into Foreign Interference in response to media stories including one in The Globe and Mail that outlined a sophisticated campaign by People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its proxies to interfere in the 2021 election.

• 2024-04-08
• — The Globe and Mail

• Steven Chase, Robert Fife

India has reportedly told the United States that a special panel it set up to investigate a foiled plot to kill a Canadian-American Sikh separatist in New York has concluded it was the action of rogue government operatives.

• 2024-03-21
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase, Nathan VanderKlippe

One of two fired scientists at the centre of an RCMP investigation into a massive security breach at Canada’s top infectious-disease laboratory in Winnipeg is working in China and collaborating with researchers from the People’s Liberation Army.

• 2024-03-19
• — The Globe and Mail

• Steven Chase, Robert Fife

The head of the public inquiry into foreign interference is proposing to grant opposition parties additional rights at the coming hearings that will investigate meddling in Canadian politics by countries such as China. These would include the power to cross-examine witnesses who testify in the first phase of the hearings that resume in Ottawa late this month, according to a March 11 letter from lead commission counsel Shantona Chaudhury that was obtained by The Globe and Mail.

• 2024-03-12
• — The Globe and Mail

• Steven Chase, Robert Fife

The ambush began in a parking lot of a Surrey, B.C., temple with a barrage of bullets, after which the two gunmen fled down a side street on foot.The brazen slaying last June of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar – a killing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has publicly blamed on the Indian government – was over in less than two minutes and was caught on surveillance video.

• 2024-03-06
• — The Globe and Mail

• Steven Chase, Robert Fife

Electronic components from four Canadian companies are turning up in weapons and other gear used by Russia in its military assault on Ukraine, according to a database created by a Ukrainian government agency. Parts from Canada have been found in three Iranian-made combat drones: the Shahed-136, the Shahed 131, the Mohajer-6 as well as the Russian-made Orlan-10 drone, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention’s (NACP) War and Sanctions database shows.

• 2024-02-20
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

A B.C. senator is casting doubt on the findings of two federal election-monitoring reports that suggest the Chinese government in 2021 may have targeted then-Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and former fellow MP Kenny Chiu through disinformation campaigns. Yuen Pau Woo raised his concerns in a Feb. 6 submission to the foreign interference commission headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue that is preparing for hearings in March. The commission is probing meddling primarily by China in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

• 2024-02-12
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

A special national-security cabinet committee set up by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau amid a growing controversy over foreign interference has met only a handful of times as critics accuse the government of not taking seriously threats posed by China and other rival states. In the months before Mr. Trudeau bowed to opposition demands to call a public inquiry into foreign interference in September, he set up a National Security Council in July to “address issues of pressing concern to Canada’s domestic and international security.” The committee of senior ministers, chaired by the Prime Minister, has met only four times, two sources say.

• 2024-02-02
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

A coalition of human-rights groups representing ethnic communities targeted by China are poised to boycott the public inquiry into foreign interference that begins Monday if Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue allows politicians with alleged ties to Beijing to cross-examine them and gain access to confidential testimony.

• 2024-01-29
• — The Globe and Mail

• Steven Chase, Robert Fife

Canada’s federal election watchdog has been investigating a complaint of foreign interference during the 2021 ballot in the B.C. riding of Steveston-Richmond East, according to the former Conservative MP who lost his seat in that vote. Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu said he was interviewed twice by staff from the Commissioner of Canada Elections in 2023. To his knowledge, he said, investigators have visited the riding three times.

• 2024-01-26
• — The Globe and Mail

• Steven Chase, Robert Fife

Police forces in at least six cities across Canada are probing extortion cases targeting the South Asian community and in particular people of Indian origin. Authorities have been reluctant to disclose many details, but a leaked bulletin from one of the investigating police forces suggests at least some extortion attempts in Abbotsford, B.C., may be linked to an Indian gangster named Lawrence Bishnoi, a man the Indian government calls a terrorist and accuses of links to the separatist Khalistani movement.

• 2024-01-12
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

Ottawa is willing to sign off on multimillion-dollar settlement packages for Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig to compensate them for the nearly three years they were incarcerated under harsh conditions in Chinese prisons, two government sources say. Federal lawyers are in compensation talks with the two men and are hoping to conclude financial settlements early in the new year, the sources say. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to discuss the delicate legal negotiations.

• 2023-12-26
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

Some Canadian activists who frequently criticize the Chinese government say they do not feel comfortable testifying at an upcoming public inquiry into foreign interference where two politicians accused of close ties to China have been granted full standing and the ability to cross examine witnesses.

• 2023-12-07
• — The Globe and Mail

• Robert Fife, Steven Chase

Former national-security adviser and CSIS director Richard Fadden said that during his time in government, there were internal reports of diplomats with Global Affairs’s foreign information-gathering unit overstepping their authority. The Global Security Reporting Program, which sends diplomats to hot spots to collect security-related information for Ottawa, has come under a spotlight after accusations by Michael Spavor, held prisoner by China for nearly three years.

• 2023-12-04
• — The Globe and Mail