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Over a six-year period, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other federal officials were warned countless times of foreign intrusion into Canadian democracy. Trudeau, as late as 2023, denied having any knowledge of illicit activity by foreign agents.

A newly-disclosed Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) logbook claimed 163 separate meetings with the federal government on foreign interference, reported Blacklock’s Reporter.

The document, tabled at the Foreign Interference Commission (FIC), was identified as “briefings related to the threat or incidence of foreign interference in Canadian democratic institutions since 2018” including the last two general elections.

The 163 meetings covered the period from August 1, 2018 to March 15, 2024. “This list does not include additional ad hoc meetings that may have occurred,” said the document. “These are planned formal briefings.”

Trudeau claims he was never given information on China's election interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections, but CSIS documents shown at the Foreign Interference Commission show otherwise.

Who's lying?https://t.co/vD78U4ZuZQpic.twitter.com/kMPorswVXL

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) April 9, 2024

Prime Minister Trudeau, as late May 3, 2023, denied he was ever told of Chinese interference targeting elected officials. He assumed incidents were so trivial they did not warrant his attention. 

“The Canadian Security Intelligence Service knew about certain things but didn’t feel it reached a threshold that required them to pass it up out of CSIS,” Trudeau told reporters at the time.

“Was it briefed up out of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service? It was not,” he said, noting CSIS said it wasn’t a “significant enough concern”.

Among the officials to receive briefings on foreign interference include Trudeau himself, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, Defence Minister Bill Blair, then-Public Safety  Minister Marco Mendicino, now-Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Government House Leader Karina Gould, the Commissioner of Elections and numerous deputy ministers. No Opposition MPs identified as targets of foreign agents were warned at the time.

Rebel News visits Parliament and questions MPs in regards to the recent discovery that the Communist Party of China is operating police stations in Canada, and refuse to answer.

FULL REPORT by @wdiazberthiaume: https://t.co/0AoRpDgLDF pic.twitter.com/9EWO2FXZmH

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) October 27, 2022

A May 31, 2021 CSIS brief revealed then Conservative MP Kenny Chiu and MP Michael Chong were the target of Chinese interference. The latter was informed last May following a breaking news article on the matter.

“It is indeed something I communicated,” David Vigneault, the former CSIS director, testified last April 12. “I have verbalized some of these issues in the past,” he added.

Documents show the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on February 21, 2023 received an explicit written warning that Chinese agents posed an “existential threat to Canadian democracy.” The memo was dated three months before Trudeau told reporters he was never warned.

The 2021 CSIS brief People’s Republic Of China Foreign Interference In Canada: A Critical National Security Threat mentioned that no country came close to matching China’s stealth in surveillance and espionage. “China’s foreign interference activities in Canada continue to be sophisticated, pervasive and persistent,” it said.

Trudeau says its "more difficult" for foreign actors to organize groups "showing up on tricycles" as he downplays CSIS' concerns over China directing bus loads of people to back former Liberal MP Han Dong during his nomination process.https://t.co/irUitH63CK pic.twitter.com/EPLUDlRYVD

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) April 10, 2024

“To conduct these threats the Chinese Communist Party leverages a range of Party, government and non-government assets,” wrote analysts. 

“It truly is a remarkable document,” Gib van Ert, counsel for MP Chong earlier told the Commission. The censored six-page memo from 2023 detailed the scope of Chinese subterfuge targeting the Conservative Party in 2019 and 2021 general elections.

“State actors are able to conduct foreign interference successfully in Canada because there are few legal or political consequences,” said the memo Briefing To The Prime Minister’s Office On Foreign Interference Threats To Canada’s Democratic Institutions. 

“Until foreign interference is viewed as an existential threat to Canadian democracy and governments forcefully and actively respond, these threats will persist,” it reads.

Trudeau claims he told Chinese President Xi Jinping that China "needed to stop" interfering in Canada's democratic processes.

He adds that discussing the two Michaels held in custody by China was an "irritant" for them. https://t.co/irUitH5vNc pic.twitter.com/2sRVCC2HbH

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) April 10, 2024

Former foreign affairs minister Marc Garneau criticized Trudeau’s staffers for acting as “a bit of a filter” in relaying critical information or concerns. He was “never sure” if something conveyed to the PMO “ever got to the prime minister's ears.”

"There are occasions when a minister wants to talk directly to the prime minister. And I never felt, despite the fact that he said his door was always open, that it was really something that he invited," he told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.

Garneau, in his autobiography, notes Trudeau “did not seek my opinion on any issues.” After being shuffled from the Transport to Foreign Affairs portfolio, he was none closer to the prime minister.

They only spoke once, where the then minister offered advice on Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were imprisoned in China at the time. 

“The prime minister's aloofness led me to conclude that he did not consider my advice useful enough to want to hear from me directly, relying instead on his staff,” Garneau writes. "I found this disappointing, to say the least.”