The federal body tasked with monitoring elections for foreign interference says it has briefed Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland’s campaign about a Chinese-backed operation that has been spreading disparaging articles online about her.
The Security and Intelligence Threats to Election Task Force (SITE) said in a statement Friday that the “information operation” was identified by Global Affairs Canada’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM Canada) and traced to a popular WeChat news account linked to China.
“RRM Canada detected coordinated and malicious activity about Ms. Freeland,” the statement said.
It estimated that between two million and three million WeChat users globally saw the campaign, which included articles published to an anonymous blog that were then spread by over 30 other news accounts on the app.
“The campaign received very high levels of engagement and views, with WeChat news articles disparaging Ms. Freeland netting over 140,000 interactions between Jan. 29 and Feb. 3, 2025.”
SITE said it briefed the Liberal Party executive and members of Freeland’s leadership campaign about its findings on Friday.
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“I will not be intimidated by Chinese foreign interference,” Freeland said in a post on social media in response to SITE’s announcement.
“Having spent years confronting authoritarian regimes, I know firsthand the importance of defending our freedoms. Canada’s democracy is strong. My thanks to our national security agencies for protecting it.”
In her final months as finance minister, Freeland took aim at Chinese efforts to enter the North American auto market through Mexico and led efforts to impose tariffs and bans on Chinese electric vehicle technology and components.
SITE was established in 2019 and includes representatives of CSIS, the RCMP, Global Affairs Canada and the Communications Security Establishment, the country’s signals intelligence agency.
It has monitored several federal byelections for foreign interference since its creation and announced last month it would be overseeing the Liberal leadership race as well.
Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s final report on foreign interference in Canada’s democratic institutions identified disinformation and misinformation campaigns, foreign or domestic, as the “single biggest threat to our democracy” after leading a public inquiry into the issue.
Foreign states continue to use more traditional methods to meddle in Canadian democracy, Hogue said, but are augmenting those efforts through “sophisticated technological means” to sow disinformation both in traditional media and on social media platforms.
“This threat is all the more nefarious because the means available to counter it are limited, and very difficult to implement,” Hogue told reporters upon releasing the report. “Nevertheless, we must not give up, but rather attack it forcefully, all together.”
—With files from Global’s Sean Previl and Alex Boutilier
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.