Chinese President Xi Jing Ping (left), Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Courtesy CBC
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CSIS warned Ottawa that Beijing had big plans for Canada as far back as 2014

Jen Hodgson

A classified 2014 Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) brief warned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was already making moves in Canadian elections at all levels of government.

The leaked document, marked “SECRET/CanadianEyesOnly,” was reviewed by The Bureau investigative journalist and author of Wilful Blindness Sam Cooper. It said CCP actors from the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa were targeting various candidates through diaspora community leaders.

The brief warning that CCP operatives were guiding community figures “to arrange direct channels of influence over politicians” was circulated within top government agencies including Global Affairs Canada, the Privy Council Office and the Communications Security Establishment.

Cooper says this document is distinct from other leaked intelligence reports reviewed by The Bureau because its main emphasis is on Ottawa and federal politics, whereas other intel indicated foreign interference in Toronto and Vancouver.

The 2014 document indicates the CCP used tactics that included “calculated pressure campaigns” and widespread invitations for elected officials to attend certain events, including inviting a sitting senator and an MP to a high-profile Chinese New Year banquet in 2015.

“There is now a ‘new strategy’ to invite as many city, provincial, and federal politicians as possible in the run-up to various elections, to ‘make a lot of noise’ and submit demands to those politicians in exchange for community support,” wrote CSIS.

The intelligence agency noted there was “no further information on the event to which the politicians would be invited.”

Cooper says the brief demonstrates the CCP’s blueprint for scaling its influence in Canadian democracy came shortly after President Xi Jinping rose to power — indicating Canadian officials received the CSIS warnings a decade before the 2024 National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) report.

NSICOP was established in 2017, though the issue of Chinese interference only came to the forefront in the spring of 2024 when the committee released a damning report that identified “a few” parliamentarians who were operating under the influence of Beijing, either as “semi-witting or witting” participants.

Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, head of the Commission on Foreign Interference held in the spring and fall of 2024, released her final report in January 2025.

She said the commission found “no substantive proof” of parliamentarians crossing a legal line. Cooper says Hogue “downplayed evidence of illicit dealings between Canadian parliamentarians and foreign states.”

“The sharp discrepancy between NSICOP’s warnings and Hogue’s conclusions underscores the complexity of assessing intelligence reporting alongside legal standards,” wrote Cooper, suggesting Canada lacks legislative framework and investigative resources sufficient for “prosecuting foreign interference cases that might implicate political leaders.”