Canadian intelligence reported in 2021 that Beijing planned to interfere in Canada’s next federal election with disinformation suggesting the Conservatives “will follow the path of … Donald Trump”—a narrative now echoed in a clandestine dirty tricks operation exposed inside Prime Minister Mark Carney’s campaign.

A 2021 CSIS intelligence bulletin marked “Secret,” warned that Chinese consular officials planned to influence future Canadian elections by portraying Conservative politicians as “Trump-like” and hostile to immigrants. The document has been redacted by The Bureau.

The warning comes from a classified CSIS bulletin dated December 20, 2021 and marked Secret, distributed to Canadian departments including Global Affairs Canada, the Privy Council Office, the Communications Security Establishment, and Five Eyes intelligence partners. The report was based on information from Chinese consular officials in Canada.

According to the CSIS assessment, a consulate official in mid-November 2021 discussed how Chinese influence in federal ridings with large Chinese-Canadian populations had proven effective, and laid out a forward-looking strategy to shape future electoral outcomes. The official reportedly stated:

“Ethnic Chinese voters should be told that if the CPC wins a federal election, the CPC will follow the path of former United States President Donald Trump and ban Chinese students from certain universities or educational programs. This will threaten the future of the voters’ children.”

The consulate official also suggested that during Canada’s next federal election, the message should be circulated that the Conservative Party of Canada “is critical of the PRC and opposed to individuals from mainland China.” The remarks were made shortly after Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a minority government in the fall of 2021.

CSIS concluded that PRC officials believed Chinese immigrants were relatively easy to influence toward Beijing’s geopolitical goals and could be mobilized to oppose Canada’s Conservative Party. The bulletin describes a broader context in which Chinese state actors sought to paint Canadian Conservatives as hostile to immigrants, aligned with Trump-style nationalism.

The Bureau’s analysis suggests that if Chinese state-linked actors intended to repeat this narrative in the 2025 federal campaign, they would find their narrative echoed by the Liberal Party’s own war room tactics.

Prime Minister Mark Carney this morning acknowledged wrongdoing inside his campaign, following revelations that Liberal operatives had planted fake political buttons at a major Conservative conference in an effort to smear Pierre Poilievre’s campaign as a Trump-style threat to Canada.

The Liberal Party has attempted to downplay the scandal, calling it an instance of overzealous political operatives getting “carried away.” But the parallels to Beijing’s 2021 disinformation strategy—as outlined in the CSIS bulletin—raise broader concerns over domestic political campaigns echoing or amplifying hostile state narratives.

The disinformation scandal was first exposed by CBC News on Sunday, April 13. According to the report, two Liberal staffers attended the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference last week. Observers have noted ticket prices for the event cost hundreds of dollars, suggesting the Liberal infiltration was well planned and resourced. They scattered buttons reading “Stop the Steal” along with buttons favouring Alberta secession movements and other political messages that would suggest Pierre Poilievre’s campaign is attracting MAGA-like extremists in Canada that may be open to Trump’s earlier jibes of turning Canada into a “51st State.”

The aim was to create the appearance of Trumpian division and election denialism within Poilievre’s camp.

Asked about the scandal at a press conference today, Prime Minister Carney said: “The responsible people have been reassigned within the campaign.”

But the half-apology has failed to quell public concern.

The concerns extend well beyond party politics, in The Bureau’s analysis. Two weeks ago, Canada’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force identified a sophisticated PRC information campaign targeting Chinese-language social media in Canada. On March 10 and March 25, the WeChat account Youli-Youmian, linked to Chinese Communist Party propaganda efforts, shared widely amplified posts portraying Mark Carney in a highly favorable light.

One post, titled “The US encounters a ‘tough guy’ Prime Minister,” framed Carney as standing up to Donald Trump’s tariff threats.

According to SITE, both posts were rapidly boosted by a coordinated cluster of 30 smaller WeChat accounts, garnering between 85,000 and 130,000 interactions and as many as three million views. SITE attributed the surge to a broader PRC information operation.

At the SITE briefing Monday, The Bureau questioned whether the task force would investigate the Carney campaign’s “ButtonGate” scandal as potential domestic election interference—especially given the operation echoed a PRC disinformation playbook from 2021 that falsely depicted the Conservatives as Trump-style extremists. The question also raised whether SITE had the capacity to examine any crossover between this Liberal narrative and a broader foreign campaign.

A SITE spokesperson replied cautiously: “National security agencies take any attempt to undermine our democracy really seriously… Not all disinformation is foreign-backed… but SITE is committed to informing Canadians when emerging issues can be linked to foreign state actors.”

The official did not say whether SITE would investigate the Liberal Party’s role in the disinformation campaign.

In the same session, a National Post reporter asked SITE whether they were minimizing the implications of PRC-linked social media accounts appearing to promote Mark Carney.

“There was a lot of talk about the information that was put out,” the reporter said. “But there was also a fair amount of interpretation by many online that viewed the posts in question on WeChat as China endorsing Mark Carney or promoting the Liberals… trying to rig the election, or at the very least, push Chinese Canadians to vote for Mr. Carney.”

SITE responded by emphasizing its broader framing: “In our briefing, as you know, we cited both positive and negative posts. What was and remains important for us is that the Youli-Youmian account is linked to a foreign state, and the information it shared may be used to manipulate. That was what we felt was important to get across.”

In a deeply alarming escalation of transnational repression that echoes threats made against a Canadian election candidate, Hong Kong’s national security police today detained the parents of U.S. resident Frances Hui, a prominent Hong Kong democracy activist who previously testified before Canada’s Parliament about Chinese government harassment on Western soil.

Hui, who fled Hong Kong and was granted asylum in Washington, D.C., faces a HK$1 million bounty issued in December 2023 under Beijing’s sweeping National Security Law. She had warned Canadian lawmakers that the Chinese Communist Party was targeting overseas activists—including herself and others with Canadian ties—through intimidation, surveillance, and harassment campaigns executed by proxies abroad.

The detention in Hong Kong on Thursday, April 10, comes just one week after the U.S. State Department sanctioned six Hong Kong and Chinese officials and two days after a bill was reintroduced in Congress to shutter Hong Kong’s de facto embassies in the U.S. Hui’s advocacy played a major role in both moves.

Hui, the Advocacy and Policy Coordinator for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation, condemned the police action against her family as “emotional blackmail.”

“My parents and I have had no contact since I left Hong Kong in 2020,” Hui said in a statement. “The police arranged a crowd of media to photograph their exit from the police station—to humiliate them. This is a deliberate attempt to intimidate and silence me.”

The targeting of Hui’s family may intensify concerns in diaspora communities that the Chinese Communist Party is attempting to obtain multiple objectives, potentially sending a message timed to Canada’s 2025 federal election—especially after recent remarks from a former Liberal candidate in Markham–Unionville stoked widespread alarm.

Paul Chiang, who resigned last week amid an RCMP review into controversial remarks, had reportedly suggested that Conservative opponent Joe Tay—a Canadian citizen wanted under Hong Kong’s National Security Law—could be taken to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto to claim a bounty.

Chiang, a former Markham police officer who unseated longtime Conservative representative Bob Saroya to win Markham–Unionville for Team Trudeau in 2021, stepped down after the RCMP confirmed it was investigating his comments to Chinese-language media in January 2025.

On the latest threats to Hui and her family, CFHK Foundation President Mark Clifford said: “This is outrageous targeting of a young woman who has lived in the U.S. for the last five years and whose advocacy and freedom of speech is protected under U.S. laws. The CFHK Foundation will continue to support Frances and all those with the courage to speak out against the crimes being perpetrated in Hong Kong and the low-class bullies who perpetrate them.”

Earlier in Canada’s election campaign, which is quickly becoming marked by reports of Chinese interference, Tay, a former Hong Kong broadcaster whose independent journalism has drawn retaliation from Beijing, quickly rejected Chiang’s apology, calling it “the tradecraft of the Chinese Communist Party.” He added: “They are not just aimed at me; they are intended to send a chilling signal to the entire community to force compliance with Beijing’s political goals.”

As previously reported by The Bureau, Hui detailed her experience with transnational repression in testimony before Canada’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights. She recounted how she was targeted by a naturalized U.S. citizen—now under federal indictment in Massachusetts—who allegedly spied on dissidents for the Chinese government.

“Between 2018 and 2022, this individual spied on members and leaders of Boston-area Chinese family associations and community organizations, as well as anti-PRC dissidents,” Hui told the committee. “In one incident, he mobilized hundreds to harass us. I was followed home and had to call the police. I regularly receive phone calls from men speaking Chinese.”

Developing…