Be wary of Foreign Interference Inquiry claims

Canada's Foreign Interference Inquiry chugs along - yes, yet another public inquiry! - and now Canadian politicians are having their say about whether, and how, China (and other countries, but mainly China) interfered in Canadian elections, particularly those of 2019 and 2021.

Given that the Conservatives lost those two elections, it comes as no surprise that they are at pains to point out how they were negatively affected, even though Chinese interference has been an issue for many years, and has affected all parties to some extent. The narrative is that the Tories' platforms in those elections were much more anti-China, or at least they were perceived that way by the PRC and the Chinese Communist Party, and so they were specifically targeted by Chinese interference.

Erin O'Toole, one of the losing Conservative leaders in those elections, testified yesterday, and made the claim that two, three, five, maybe as many as nine, Conservative seats may have been lost as a result of Chinese interference, as "a lot of people did not vote because they were intimidated". O'Toole admits that even this many seats would not have swung the election results his way, but adds that it may have affected the party's decision to remove him as leader (which, you get the impression, is his real beef). 

In fact, the Inquiry thus far has found that eleven electoral campaigns were affected by Chinese money in the 2019 federal election, seven Liberal and four Conservative candidates. It turns out that Justin Trudeau was also targeted, as was Jenny Kwan of the NDP. So, it was not all one-way traffic, and not as simple as the early Conservative narrative would have us believe.

But it all seems so loosey-goosey. It is clear that some attempts at voter intimidation and suppression did take place, but just how many people "a lot of people" amounts to is far from clear. Claims that anywhere from two to nine seats were affected are so vague as to be meaningless, and there is no actual evidence that ANY seats were actually lost as a direct result of the foreign interference. It is all about "hunches" and "feelings", which really should have no place in an objective investigation.

So, sure, have a public inquiry: foreign interference in Canadian elections needs to be addressed and clamped down on (although we should be realistic enough to admit that it will never actually go away). But we should be wary of specific unsubstantiated claims of this kind. 

And you have to know that Pierre Poilievre will have no qualms about using this "evidence" to batter the government. Indeed, it would not surprise me at all if he went full Donald Trump and claims that the elections were stolen, or at least to hint at that (Poilievre, for all his bluster, is much more subtle and careful than Trump).