Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several members of his Cabinet will respond to questions today about what they were told about allegations of foreign interference in the past two federal elections and how they responded.
The committee will hear from Government Leader Karina Gould, Defense Minister Bill Blair and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc earlier in the day.
Prime Minister Trudeau is scheduled to begin testifying mid-afternoon.
Commissioner Marie-Josée Hoag is investigating allegations that China, Russia, India and others interfered in some way in the 2019 and 2021 elections. She is also assessing the flow of information within the government related to allegations of interference in the past two federal elections.
One of the allegations is that in 2019, a security official told a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that then-Liberal Party candidate Handong was “part of China’s foreign interference network” and that the party had “not supported Dong’s candidacy.” cancel.”
In testimony on Tuesday, Jeremy Broadhurst, the Liberal Party’s national campaign director for the 2019 federal election, disputed those claims.
“They did not recommend that the party should do anything,” he said. “They were not advising the prime minister to take any particular action. They just wanted us to know the information they had at the time.”
Broadhurst added: “It would have been very surprising for him if intelligence officials felt it was their place to advise political parties on whether to drop a candidate.”
Trudeau’s high-profile appearance comes as the first phase of public hearings draws to a close.
Hogue’s interim report is expected to be released in early May.