A government watchdog tasked with shielding Canadian elections against foreign interference has issued an alert alleging that the People’s Republic of China has launched a virtual campaign against Chrystia Freeland’s bid to become the new Liberal party leader.
The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections task force responsible for monitoring threats to Canadian elections issued a statement claiming to have detected a malicious foreign interference campaign from the Chinese government using Global Affairs Canada’s Rapid Response Mechanism.
SITE is a task force composed of Canadian public safety and intelligence security agencies and Global Affairs Canada officials mandated to protect Canadian elections by detecting foreign interference and coordinating a whole-of-government approach to counteracting threats.
SITE says that China has launched a malicious information campaign against Freeland on the popular Chinese social media app WeChat from accounts linked to the Chinese government.
“The launch of this information operation was traced to WeChat’s most popular news account – an anonymous blog that has been previously linked by experts at the China Digital Times to the People’s Republic of China,” reads SITE’s statement.
SITE claims that the foreign interference campaign involved approximately 30 accounts receiving a substantive amount of engagement in a six-day period.
“The campaign received very high levels of engagement and views, with WeChat news articles disparaging Ms. Freeland netting over 140,000 interactions between January 29 and February 3, 2025. RRM Canada estimates that 2 to 3 million WeChat users saw the campaign globally,” said SITE.
In response to the revelation of a foreign interference campaign launched against her leadership bid, Freeland said that she would continue to persist through the leadership race despite the impediment.
“I will not be intimidated by Chinese foreign interference,” said Freeland
“Having spent years confronting authoritarian regimes, I know firsthand the importance of defending our freedoms. Canada’s democracy is strong. My thanks to our national security agencies for protecting it.”
In a comment to True North, founder of The Bureau Sam Cooper said that while not much is currently known about the foreign interference campaign against Freeland, the attack is reminiscent of past attempts to interfere in Canada’s democracy.
“From what we can judge so far in SITE’s disclosure, which is minimal, these are disinformation attacks consistent with CCP targeting of leaders in the Conservative Party during the 2021 election, in that WeChat accounts – which we know are subject to Chinese intelligence monitoring and propaganda units working for Xi’s regime – have operated in a network to undermine Freeland,” said Cooper.
Cooper compares the targeting of Freeland’s campaign to the foreign interference campaign allegedly launched against the 2021 re-election campaign of Conservative MP for Steveston––Richmond East Kenny Chiu.
“The scheme very much resembles the attempted smearing of Kenny Chiu, in that the same WeChat account structure in combination with PRC controlled news sites are reportedly involved in disseminating information during a Canadian campaign, in this case, one that will likely choose the next prime minister in a party nomination wide open to foreign voters and without any strong accountability structures outside of the LPC’s own control,” said Cooper.
Cooper said that it is unclear why China may want to hurt Freeland’s campaign, but suggests it may be related to positions she took in her time as a Liberal cabinet minister.
“At this point it’s an educated guess as to why China would want to undermine Freeland. For one, as Finance Minister she took regulatory action reportedly against a startup bank which reportedly is comprised of individuals linked to China, money laundering concerns, and questionable lobbying of Prime Minister Trudeau,” said Cooper.
