Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a handful of cupboard ministers will take questions in the present day about what they have been advised about — and the way they responded to — allegations of international interference prior to now two federal elections.
The fee will hear from Authorities Home Chief Karina Gould, Defence Minister Invoice Blair and Public Security Minister Dominic LeBlanc in the course of the first half of the day.
Trudeau is anticipated to start out testifying mid-afternoon.
Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue is investigating allegations that China, Russia, India and others meddled in a technique or one other within the 2019 and 2021 elections. She’s additionally assessing the move of data inside authorities associated to alleged meddling within the earlier two federal elections.
One of many allegations stems from a media report that claimed that in 2019, safety officers advised senior officers within the Prime Minister’s Workplace (PMO) that then Liberal candidate Han Dong “was a part of a Chinese language international interference community” and that the social gathering ought to “rescind Dong’s candidacy.”
Testifying Tuesday, Jeremy Broadhurst — the Liberals’ nationwide marketing campaign director for the 2019 federal election — disputed these claims.
“They weren’t making a suggestion that the social gathering ought to do something,” he mentioned. “They weren’t advising that the prime minister take any particular actions. They simply wished us to have the knowledge that that they had at the moment.”
Broadhurst added that “it might have been very, very shocking to” him if “intelligence officers had felt it was their place to advise a celebration on whether or not or to not drop candidates.”
Trudeau’s high-profile look comes as the primary stage of public hearings attracts to an in depth.
Hogue’s interim report is due in early Might.
